


A Lack of Color, A Sea of Red

by itabitaboo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Yaoi, trigger warning: self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:19:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itabitaboo/pseuds/itabitaboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When my life was turned upside down, Gaara was the only one who could save me. I could never have expected it to have to happen this way though. In the end, I guess it was really all up to me." —Neji</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Lack of Color

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Wooooooo baby! This one is long. This is set in the USofA. It's supposed to be fluffy but I might not be good at fluff T.T This fic was gifted to someone from ff.net (snowblinded) because Snow is like my biggest fan ever, or at least the most devoted xD There is an insinuation of Neji/Sai and Sasu/Naru. This story is about neither of them though. This story is about Neji and Gaara.
> 
> Also, here is a link to a layout for their apartment...  
> i169.photobucket.com/albums/u226/RainbowsWorthRain/Fic-Related/NejiGaaraALOCASORapt_zpsc882f9fb.png
> 
> BTW, this is not beta'd. Cut me some slack if there is some shit wrong with it. I've been over it a billion times, but it's so long and it gets hard to catch everything. I'll keep checking it every few days because I do want it to be up to par. It's easy to get used to something though and start missing mistakes more easily.
> 
> Warnings:  
> —OOCness.  
> —Profanity, because I can't avoid it.  
> —Self-harm and a lot of blood because of it.  
> —This is still yaoi, even if there isn't any smut smut in the butt butt.  
> —Mild boyxboy action. There are no lemons though, so don't worry about that.  
> —Sadness and despair but Neji and Gaara are Snow's OTP, so happiness is sure to follow… maybe >:)

Neji should have already dressed, eaten, and made his bed. Instead, he lie curled up in his bed with his long, dark hair draped over his pillow while he fidgeted with the edge of his comforter because today was a Saturday, and he spent Saturdays ignoring the outside world. At first, he spent them crying. That was a habit that he had only really stopped a couple of months ago. Now, he was used to spending them feeling vacant, often doing no more than he now did. This day was different though because this day Neji was smiling, and that was all thanks to the redhead singing his heart out in the next room.

It was already three in the afternoon but Neji had been awake for quite a while. He just hadn't gotten up, as was his normal routine. Saturdays and Sundays were his 'S Days', which stood for 'Shit-My-Life-Fucking-Sucks-And-I'm-Going-To-Cry-About-It Days'. They were his it's-okay-to-wallow days. He wasn't sure exactly what form his wallowing had taken on lately though. He just wasn't sure that he could even cry anymore. Not because the sting of losing his lover wasn't as sharp as it had been six months ago, but because he honestly thought that his tear ducts had just dried up. Maybe there came a point where you literally  _couldn't_  cry anymore, because it definitely wasn't from a lack of sorrow. In fact, he might swear that the sadness had actually increased with time.

For the first month, Neji never left his room. He literally spent every day huddled in his bed and crying. Thankfully, his boss was an understanding woman. Being one of the top employees at a multi-million dollar company wasn't exactly a forgiving job. Even family deaths were hard to get away for. Luckily, his cousin was his boss. It was actually his uncle's company before he gave it over to his daughter, Hinata. She had always been a bit shy as a child, but she really hit her stride in college. She was still as sweet and kind as ever, but she knew how to get business done and done well. It didn't take her long to impress her father and earn her place as CEO.

She had initially tried to promote Neji to an executive position but he declined. He had never been one for those flashy titles. It was already enough for him to share his last name with the company. He didn't want to become VP or anything too. It just wasn't his thing. Not to mention, he couldn't exactly accept such added responsibility when he was offered it. He had lived a decent distance from the city at that time. What he liked about the title he had already had was that he could work in his local branch and not have to worry about commuting to headquarters for whatever reasons. An executive position just didn't fit his lifestyle. Now, however, his life had completely changed. Perhaps such an offer was exactly what he needed at this point. He'd have to bring it up to Hinata again.

Had Hinata not been the big boss though, Neji would have already been fired. Hell, had the big boss been even his uncle, he still would have been fired. Hinata and Neji had always been close though. She insisted that he take as much time away from work as he needed. She often checked up on Neji's friends to make sure that they were always checking on him too. It was an unnecessary effort though because Neji's friends were golden. TenTen, for one, practically never left. Most of the group met at university, but TenTen was one of Neji's two oldest childhood friends. She had always had a crush on him and only gave it up when she finally realized just how gay he was and that there was no chance of changing him back, not that she didn't try. She and Neji were just very close friends now, so close, in fact, that she found it awfully difficult to leave his side in his current state. Her job was threatened though, so she was forced to part from Neji after only the first couple weeks.

After the first month passed, things began to get a little bit better for Neji. He had his other friends to help him out too. There was Lee, even if he was too energetic most of the time. There were also Shikamaru and Chouji. Shika was lazy. He didn't actually come by too much but he stayed for a really long time when he did. Chouji always brought food but then just ate it all. There were Sakura and Ino too. They were both very comforting. They were really good at going on as if life was normal. They made Neji feel like, even if for just their stay, his life wasn't completely falling apart.

Then, of course, there was Gaara, Neji's other oldest friend and his closest one too. Neji wasn't very good at smiling anymore, at least not in public, but Gaara had at least gotten him to stop trying to kill himself. Yes, he had tried, or at least he had threatened to try. Neji was thankful for Gaara, even if he did still wish for death a lot of the time. There was also Kiba, who was also really good at keeping Neji's suicidal thoughts at bay. Kiba had the compassion that Gaara could sometimes be lacking, not that Gaara really lacked compassion when it came to Neji. In fact, Neji was the one person that Gaara showed compassion toward. Gaara was a good guy and a wonderful friend. He was just never the sweet, caring, tender type like Kiba, who naturally tended to his friends. Neji was the sole exception to Gaara's stiff attitude though. In the end, Gaara and Kiba made a good tag team when it came to keeping Neji's suicidal tendencies at bay. It was actually pretty ironic that it was Kiba who had repeatedly saved Neji's life because they had almost never even met. Kiba was really just a friend of a friend at one point, and the friend that he was just a friend of was really just a friend of another friend…

Well, it all had to do with Naruto and Sakura. Neji had become friends with Sakura and Ino in high school, and then Naruto came along during their first year at university and practically fell in love with Sakura. So, at first, Naruto was really just a friend of Sakura's, and Kiba was just a friend of Naruto's. Time passed though as the rest of the group found each other and then, before they even knew it, they had all melded into one big group of friends. It was luck, or maybe just really close bonds, that kept them all close to each other, even after graduating college and getting "real" jobs.

Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke had all lived three hours away in the beginning. That was something that their friends never failed to complain about, but they all got together often enough anyway. Well, at least the ones who  _could_  get together got together. However, now that Neji had moved back to the city and into Gaara's apartment, Sakura and Ino took the title as the furthest away. That, of course, was discounting Naruto and Sasuke, both of whom were far, far overseas. Sakura and Ino shared an apartment about a half an hour away though. Everyone else lived in various corners of the city, except that Shikamaru lived ten minutes out into the country where he could gaze at the stars more easily. It was truly lucky for Neji that all of his friends were close and so willing to comfort. Moving back into the city was likely the best decision that he could have made.

Everyone took their turns keeping Neji company and trying to make him feel like he wasn't as alone as he felt. Gaara alone was charged with the task of getting Neji to eat and to maintain, at least, some basic grooming skills. It was because they lived together, though, that Gaara was charged with a lot of tasks that were more on the personal side. That also may have been due to another fact though, a fact that may have had less to do with the closeness of their space and more to do with the closeness of their hearts. Neji and Gaara stuck together like glue and you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to see that there were certain things that Gaara just naturally took over, things that no one else would dare refute.

After a couple more months had passed by, Neji began functioning pretty normally again. Somewhere around month five, he knew that he was as normal as he could ever be. He started to work again, even though Hinata insisted that he didn't have to come back so soon. Since he had moved back into the city, he began working at headquarters too. He always kept his weekends free though. He could barely make it through a work day without having a nervous breakdown in the bathroom. He knew that there was just no way he could lead a normal life again. Instead, he reserved his weekends for crying, if he could even muster up the tears anymore. More often than not, he simply sat as he now did and fiddled idly with his comforter, not able to muster up the energy to do much more than that and not caring to anyway.

There were occasions, however, when Gaara would do the goofiest things while in the safety of his own room beside Neji's. Those were the times when Neji would smile because he just couldn't help himself. Gaara was a pretty stiff guy, so Neji  _had_  to smile when he would hear Gaara singing along to his CDs like he did now. Occasionally, Gaara would even take the show over to Neji's room. Neji's favorite part about those occasional afternoons were the triumphant smiles that would light up Gaara's face when he would get Neji to actually laugh a whole-hearted laugh. Gaara was the only person that Neji would laugh for. His smiles were reserved solely for Gaara.

Neji loved it, too, when Gaara's pride would swell as his attempts at cheering Neji up succeeded, which they always did. It was uplifting for Neji just to see Gaara smile alone. If all Neji had to do to squeeze that smile from his redheaded friend was to crack a grin that he couldn't even hold back in Gaara's presence anyway, then Neji would smile all day for Gaara. Hell, he might just smile for the rest of his life if it meant that Gaara would be smiling too. That feeling of contentedness, of course, always dissipated in Gaara's absence. Neji found that thoughts and memories of Gaara were never enough to hold him over in his solitude. He needed Gaara in the flesh. He needed Gaara's laughter in order to create his own. That was why all of Neji's smiles were in private. The could only ever be brought on by the silly things that Gaara would do when he was alone with Neji. Gaara couldn't always be alone with Neji though, so smiling still felt like a chore, if not impossible.

Their friends came over on the weekends for a while to keep Neji company. They would usually spend their time playing games and laughing in the living room while Neji looked purely miserable—unless Gaara was right there beaming in his face, which wasn't often because Gaara rarely did much more than merely smirk in public—so it was really no surprise when their friends kind of just stopped coming over entirely. Gaara was the only one who truly didn't mind spending his weekends in. Although, he mostly spent them trying not to suffocate Neji. He knew that Neji wanted the company, even if he never actually  _asked_  for it, but he was also under the impression that Neji just liked knowing that he was there rather than actually seeing him. That was why Gaara stayed in but tried to give Neji space, and that was why he only occasionally took his singing show on the road to Neji's room.

Maybe Gaara was a bit ignorant of just how off kilter his assessment was though. Neji, certainly, would not have minded if Gaara decided to suffocate him with his company; but Gaara, certainly, was a bit too oblivious to see what was right in front of his face. That, perhaps, had a good amount to do with the fact that Gaara was not a mind reader and Neji apparently wasn't sure how to simply  _ask_  for Gaara to sing to him more often. In any case, no one else but Gaara wanted to spend any more of their weekends trying to cheer up someone who did not seem like he wanted to cheer, and Neji didn't expect them to. He knew he was a mess. He wouldn't want to be around himself all the time either… but he guessed that this was what everyone was like when their husband went 'missing in action'.

Honestly, if Sasuke had just  _listened_  to Neji, this never would have happened in the first place. Sasuke was Sasuke though. He was invincible in his own mind. Naruto didn't help any either. When they had met Naruto in college, he and Sasuke had formed some odd kind of relationship. They were definitely best friends, like Neji and Gaara were, even if they hid it behind snide remarks and empty insults. Sasuke didn't even think twice about joining the military when Naruto suggested that they do it together. Naruto promised Neji that he'd take care of Sasuke, and it looked like a really honest promise, but it was really just god's mercy that kept them together through the whole process. They had even been lucky enough to be deployed together in the same squad. That didn't make Neji feel any better though. His husband was still missing overseas and there was absolutely nothing that Naruto could do about it.

The first few months of military life weren't  _easy._  Being apart was hell, and it was hard being married to someone who seemed to love his squad members more than his own husband. It caused a definite rift between them and Neji often found himself wondering why he ever even married Sasuke. He couldn't help but think that maybe they were just comfortable. Maybe it was just easy to settle with Sasuke. When serious stress was placed on their bond though, Neji started to realize that maybe they were never really happy together to begin with. Maybe marriage just seemed like the logical next step. Pretty soon, however, divorce started to seem like the next logical step to Neji, and he'd bet that Sasuke would agree too. The stress of being a military spouse just seemed like but a prick in the finger compared to the agony that Neji now felt though. It wasn't until Sasuke's second year in that things changed for the worst. As if them drifting apart wasn't enough, Sasuke just up and disappeared. As for Neji, well, he disappeared too. He faded away into thin air, it seemed. That was, of course, until Gaara found that compassion reserved for only Neji and began to pull him back down to earth again.

It was somewhere during high school when Neji had met Sasuke. It was just history from then on. Things weren't exactly getting better, but Neji was optimistic. He had always thought that he'd try to work it out with Sasuke before they just skipped to an easy out. He wanted to try and make the marriage work because he hadn't chosen Sasuke to begin with for nothing. Putting a ring on Sasuke's finger wasn't frivolous. It should have been worth fighting for. If things didn't change though, Neji would admit defeat. Then, they could part ways amicably... but then Sasuke was just gone. So what was the point of life when you felt so  _lifeless_  anyway? Sure, Neji may have seemed like he was getting better over time, but he wasn't really better at all. He supposed that he had just stopped looking so pitiful all the time. Plus, Gaara's face helped make him  _feel_  a bit less pitiful too.

In the first couple of months, this despair was reasonable. Even if things had been rough, he had still loved Sasuke. Things  _were_  rough though, and Neji  _was_  thinking about leaving Sasuke. He should have felt better already. He should have moved on. For god's sake, he had been seriously questioning the quality of their love. That should mean something. That should have stifled the pain. It should have dulled the misery. Time should have healed the wound of losing more of a friend than a lover. So what was even left for Neji to grieve anymore? Why could he no longer cry but still ache so heavily? Why wouldn't this unreasonable wallowing cease? Still, Neji continued to grieve though. Six months, and he felt just as lost as the day that telling car rolled up to his curb. He didn't need to see their uniforms to recognize the car. It was the grim reaper of the military world, and it brought devastating news without fail.

Neji had already found it difficult to breathe when he saw the car approaching from down the street. Even if it didn't stop at his house, it meant that someone in the neighborhood was getting bad news. That alone was enough to make anyone in the close-knit community feel dismal. That was back when he and Sasuke shared a house near base. Their neighbors were all military families, and Neji really enjoyed the community there. It was nice to sit out on his porch and watch life bustle by. It kept him from missing Sasuke too much, especially when his neighbors would join him. However, when the man stepped out of the car onto Neji's curb and met his eyes, breathing had become positively impossible.

The officer seemed to move in slow motion as he brought the horrible news to Neji's porch. Every child had stopped playing. They all knew the car too. They were probably wondering if it was their mommy or daddy. All the parents had stopped chatting. A few of them had already begun meandering over to comfort their fellow Army spouse. They all watched his fingers tremble furiously as he reached for the envelope being held out to him.

The officer nodded glumly at Neji. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said softly, patting Neji apologetically on the shoulder. Neji simply nodded in return. "If there's anything that we can do…" the officer began, but he never finished that sentence. He just patted Neji's shoulder again and then left.

Neji didn't open the letter. He let it drop to the floor, where it could rest for all of eternity for all that he cared. He was overly aware of all the stares on him. He felt so self-conscious. As he stood from his chair, one of his neighbors, Mary-Beth, approached him.

"Oh, God," she whispered miserably. "I'm so sorry, Neji."

She reached out to comfort him, but he dismissed her with a weak wave of the hand. He tried to turn, to leave, to shield his vulnerable heart from all the piercing eyes, but his knees gave way. Blackness was descending upon him. He felt himself fall into arms too strong for Mary-Beth's, and he guessed that it must have been his other neighbor, Sai, who had caught him. He expected that a decent crowd would have been gathered on his stoop by then. He thanked god for Sai. He was the only other gay man living in the community, not that anyone was prejudiced or anything. It was nice to feel like someone truly understood him completely though. Sai had been having problems similar to Neji's with his own husband, Haku, who was also in Sasuke and Naruto's squad, so Neji felt especially close to the man.

Sai was there to catch him. Sai brought him to his bed. Sai didn't let anyone, not even Mary-Beth, inside to bother Neji. And when Neji woke, it was Sai that greeted him. Neji couldn't form words. He could only stare at Sai with uncertain eyes, silently pleading for some direction on what to do or feel. Sai held up the opened letter that he had apparently taken the liberty of reading. Neji didn't want to know; and, yet, he did. He wanted to know so badly. It was in his eyes, and Sai could read them well.

Sai smiled weakly, but there was no joy in his eyes. "Missing in action," he said quietly.

Neji nodded. He tried to talk, to insist that he was fine. In the end though, he sobbed, and he sobbed heavily. It was a fate worse than death. He wished that Sasuke could have just been killed. Missing was just a synonym for captured, tortured, and abused. It was code for prisoner. It meant 'we lost him to the enemy and only god can save him now'. Sasuke would have been better off dead. The worst part of 'missing in action' was the hope. It was the knowledge that he may not be dead. He may be fighting for his life. He may come back. Maybe not tomorrow or next year or even in twenty years, but you can never give up the hope that it'll happen someday. It's that hope that eats you up though. That hope is desolate. It's dangerous because it's no guarantee. It's just a sad, pitiful plea for God's mercy.

That was the day that Neji was hollowed out, and it was just as strong of a feeling today as it was back then. Moving into Gaara's apartment and away from the base hadn't helped as much as he had hoped that it would. Cutting off ties with all his friends, even Sai, didn't help either. Nothing helped, nothing at all. What Neji needed was relief. There were only two ways to get that. He either needed Sasuke back or he needed death. Neither was his to have though, so Neji simply went on in misery.

On this S Day, Neji was startled to hear a knock at his bedroom door. He was so lost in thought that he did not recognize when Gaara stopped his singing or when he left to answer the front door. For once, Neji found that he did not really want Gaara's company. He wanted solitude, but he supposed that he could concede if it was Gaara. After all, his position on how much company he did or did not want would almost certainly change the very second that he laid eyes on Gaara. Neji was used to Gaara simply walking in if Neji didn't give an immediate response, so it may have taken him a moment too long to answer.

"Come in," Neji finally called.

Gaara opened the door to reveal a familiar face that sent cold shock waves through Neji's body. He shot upright on his bed like a loaded spring. He didn't know how to react or what to say. Should he have been ecstatic? He  _had_  missed this person miserably. Should he have been afraid? He settled on sympathetic, because he could recognize the look in those eyes easily. His next movement came naturally to him. It was obvious what he needed to do.

"Come on," Neji said softly, offering a sad smile and stretching out his arms in an offer for a hug. "It seems like it's my turn to hold you now."

And just like that, Sai crumbled onto Neji's bed and into his arms. Gaara lingered for a moment to be nosy. After an appreciative nod from Neji though, Gaara left them in solitude. Neji and Sai must have stayed like that for hours, with Neji stroking his friend's hair comfortingly and Sai sobbing until his throat was raw.

"W-Will it e-ever g-get b-better?" Sai was finally able to choke out.

Neji stifled a whimper of his own. "Maybe," he said softly. "If it does, I haven't gotten there yet." That only started a new round of sobs for Sai, though his tears had stopped falling a while aback. "But we'll find it together," Neji assured, "the part where things get better." Sai nodded against his chest. After a few minutes of not talking, Neji suggested, "Stay with me."

Sai shook his head no against Neji's chest. "I-I'm supposed t-to go home," he informed. "I j-just want-ted to t-talk to you f-first though."

"Of course," Neji said, "but we'll talk tomorrow. For now, just rest."

Eventually, time made Sai weary enough to fall asleep. Neji lay awake for a while longer though. He listened as Gaara idly tapped something against the wall that separated their rooms, the wall that both of their beds were against. Gaara was secretly a really musical guy. He was always subconsciously tapping out beats. The noise brought a sense of peace onto Neji. Gaara's tapping was just proof that the other was only a wall away. All Neji needed to do was thump on the wall the right way and Gaara would be there in moments. Feeling safe and secure enclosed in the rhythm of whatever beat was playing in Gaara's head, Neji called on painful memories. He recalled how he had felt the day that he'd gotten his letter about Sasuke. Sai had been there to catch him. Now, he felt so guilty.

Sai had always understood Neji's need to detach from that world, and he had never held it against Neji. Neji had left Sai hanging though. He hadn't even left Sai with a phone number or anything. He wasn't there for Sai when Sai needed him most. Neji cringed as he thought about how Sai would have had to open his letter all alone. He would have had to find out all by himself. Had it been death or missing in action? What had Sai faced all on his own? How long had it been until he was able to find Neji? How long had he suffered alone while Neji sat in the comfortable company of his best friend? He had become Sai's best friend, but he hadn't been like a best friend should be. Neji squeezed Sai closer to his side in a silent apology.

His thoughts wandered to Naruto. That was two now. Something had happened to Sasuke, and now something had happened to Haku. How long until something happened to Naruto too? They were all in the same squad, after all. Was he going to lose that friend also? Neji's thoughts came to a halt when Gaara's tapping ceased. He listened intently for a few seconds, waiting for the noise to start up again. When nothing happened, he lifted his hand and lightly drummed his fingertips on the wall. It was a gesture that Gaara understood. Almost immediately, he started tapping a new beat on the wall. Neji sighed and smiled to himself. He was content to simply listen from then on. His mind did not wander any further than the man across the wall. After quite some time, Neji found himself drifting off to sleep. He tapped two light goodnight knocks with his knuckle. Gaara stopped tapping to knock back just as lightly. Neji was only able to slip fully into sleep when Gaara resumed his tapping once again though.

* * *

 

Neji sat cross-legged in his bed, staring down at the mass of sheets and blankets that was Sai. Sai, apparently, was a greedy sleeper. He did enjoy his bedding. It didn't bother Neji, even though he was mostly used to sleeping beside Sasuke, who was even prim and proper in his sleep. Still, Sai was easy enough to sleep with. Neji hadn't woken from the lack of bedding or anything. He had just woken and now he sat watching his friend. Even in his sleep, Sai looked tired.

Neji remembered very clearly when his wounds were still fresh and he couldn't even sleep in his sleep. He had just learned to run on empty. He had only just barely begun to pass that time in his grieving, and it was all thanks to Gaara really. Gaara had become Neji's nighttime lullaby, and Neji wasn't sure that Gaara even knew that. If Neji stayed quiet enough, he could hear what Gaara was doing in his room. It was the way that Gaara would tap idly on the wall with a pencil or something. It was the way that he would sing quietly to himself, ironically trying  _not_  to bother Neji. It was just his heart beat, his breathing, his warmth, or his fingers carding through Neji's hair when he would sometimes sit with Neji until he fell asleep as per Neji's request. Sometimes, it was just knowing that Gaara was in the other room by a rustle or a thump that he made. Those little things were all that Neji needed to be alright again. It was just Gaara's existence that had begun to heal him.

So how could  _he_  possibly help  _Sai_  cope? How could he be there for someone so vulnerable when he was still so vulnerable himself? How could he do anything at all for Sai? He could never replace Haku, that was for sure, and he could never be like Gaara. He didn't know  _how_  to be like Gaara. Gaara had helped just by being Gaara. It was the years of friendship that they had shared that made Gaara so potent for Neji. So what was Neji supposed to  _do_? He still relied on Gaara for so much. How could he allow Sai to lean on him for the very same things?

He traced slow patterns across Sai's forearm, the way that Gaara would sometimes do for him. It was the only skin of Sai's that was actually exposed beyond his shelter of blankets. Neji understood that tendency though. At first, the blankets had been comforting to him too. They were warm and enclosing. They held him somewhat like a lover would and that was nice. They felt safe and that was what Sai needed right now. Hm, Safety. Maybe Neji could give Sai, at least, that. He could assure Sai that, though he couldn't do much, he could be there to do  _something._  That way, Sai wouldn't have to be alone. He wouldn't have to feel abandoned again because Neji wouldn't abandon him, even if he didn't know what the fuck he was doing. Neji would just try to be Gaara for Sai for as long as Sai stayed with them.

After a few minutes, a soft, solitary thump came from Gaara's side of the wall. Neji was thankful that Gaara was mindful of their guest. He usually slammed on it hard to purposely wake Neji if he was sleeping. Neji wasn't sleeping though, so he thumped back quickly to avoid earning a louder one from Gaara. That thump was Gaara's way of politely telling Neji to get up and eat breakfast because Neji had developed a bit of an issue with eating when this had all started for him. He wasn't purposely starving. He had just lost his appetite. He had lost an awful lot of weight because of it, as if he wasn't already thin enough, so Gaara got involved. Eating and basic grooming habits were the only things that Gaara ever nagged Neji about. If Neji didn't get up, Gaara would literally drag him out of his room. It was always easier to just reply to the thump, no matter how much he wanted to stay in bed.

Sai began to wake though, so Neji did not get up right away. Sai shifted beneath the blankets and, for just a moment, the exhaustion was wiped clean from his face. True peace claimed him when he became aware of the stroking on his arm. The look of serenity threatened to bring a smile to Neji's lips, but it stayed just out of reach. No, Sai didn't have quite that effect on Neji. Neji did feel good, though, that he could do, at the very least, this for Sai. He remembered how Gaara's comfort always made him feel, and so he was glad to offer that to Sai too. The moment was short-lived though, for Sai seemed to recognize Neji for who he was when he finally opened his eyes and peered through his lids. As quickly as peace had descended, it lifted away.

He wasn't necessarily disappointed to see Neji. He was just disappointed that it wasn't Haku. He couldn't fight off the tears, and the supporting look in Neji's eyes told him that he didn't have to. Neji sank down and cradled Sai against his chest, allowing the other necessary time to weep. After all, it was Sunday, an S Day. This day was made for weeping.

"Shh," Neji cooed. "It's okay. I'm still here you for you, to comfort you," Neji rubbed Sai's back soothingly, "to protect you," Neji pulled Sai closer to his body, "to love you," Neji kissed the top of Sai's head softly. "I'm here for you however you need me," Neji whispered. Yeah, that seemed a lot like something Gaara would have done in the very beginning when Neji sobbed relentlessly too.

Gaara thumped against the wall harder than before, but Neji's reply was vocal. "Not now, Gaara!" he called. Gaara's thump turned into an impatient pound. "Not now!" Neji repeated firmly. "I'll eat later!" He was glad that Gaara did not persist or come bursting into his room. After waiting a few moments, just to be sure that Gaara had been warded off, Neji continued with, "I'm sorry that you had to come so far to find me. It was too far. I should have been more accessible. I cringe at the thought of you having suffered alone all that time."

"I-It w-was just t-two d-days," Sai replied.

Neji tilted his head curiously. "That's all? How did you find me so quickly?"

"N-Not hard t-to f-find," Sai said. "Y-You didn't ev-ven go th-that f-far."

Neji nodded slightly. "That's true. Still, you shouldn't have had to read that letter alone," he argued.

At that, Sai stopped his blubbering, though it took some effort. He propped himself up to gaze into Neji's eyes. After a moment, he slipped out of the bed.

"Where you going?" Neji asked as Sai left the room.

"Bags," Sai replied from halfway down the hall.

"Where?" Neji called after him, sitting up in his bed.

"In my trunk!" Sai called back. Moments later, the front door opened and closed.

Then, Gaara poked his head into view to glare at the brunette. "You'll eat later? I've heard that before," he said critically as he moved to lean in the doorway.

Neji rolled his eyes. "He was crying," he said.

"What's he crying so much for anyway?" Gaara asked. Neji sighed sadly and patted the bed beside him. Gaara moved in and took a seat beside his friend.

Neji looked down and fidgeted a bit. "Gaara, do you think that…" He paused and took a deep breath. "You think that Sasuke would have wanted me to move on?" he asked hesitantly, still looking down at his fidgeting fingers. "I'm not sure that he and I... We were just so... I'm not sure he even loved me anymore, or if he ever loved me to begin with," Neji finally said timidly.

"He loved you," Gaara assured confidently. "Things may have been changing, but he loved you." Even if it was a tough subject for Gaara, he knew that his words were true. Sasuke definitely loved Neji. Then again, who wouldn't?

"Things were so strained during that last stretch," Neji said quietly. "I have a feeling that he would have wanted to separate when he came back anyway, and it'd be a lie to say that I hadn't been thinking about it too. I was... I was prepared for a divorce," Neji admitted, "but you already know that. So why do I feel so guilty when I think about moving on with someone else?" he asked. He glanced at Gaara for long enough to watch Gaara's brow cock up in what he didn't recognize as hope before he casted his eyes downward again.

"You're thinking about someone else?" Gaara asked.

Neji shrugged and smiled weakly but honestly. "Yeah," he looked up and out to the hallway, "all the time." Gaara may have let a layer of admiration for Neji glaze over his eyes, and he may have been glad that Neji was too busy starting out into the hall to notice. "Sasuke and I might have just settled for each other, but I think I'm ready to try for something more honest with someone I think I can really fall in love with, if I haven't already fallen and if... if that person would even have me."

"Anyone would have you," Gaara said automatically.

Neji's smile grew even more honest. "You think so?" he asked, still staring out into the hall. Gaara looked out there too. What was so interesting about the hall? Then, it dawned on him. It was that guy that just kept crying, whatever his name was. It was that guy that Neji hadn't even introduced Gaara to because they were too damn busy being shacked up in this room together. That guy was the one that Neji was talking about. Neji wanted...  _him_.

Gaara tensed up considerably but kept his voice even. "I know so," he assured. Even if he wanted to sabotage the budding relationship, he wouldn't. Neji was still his best friend. If some stupid, miserable guy was what Neji wanted, then Gaara had to suck it up and support him. Gaara would do that because he loved Neji, in so many more ways than he'd ever had, or maybe ever would have, the courage to admit.

Neji turned and touched Gaara's knee gently. The touch caused Gaara to relax, whether he wanted to or not. As Gaara gazed at Neji, he was forced to smile. He was such a beautiful man, like an angel. "You are probably the most beautiful thing on the planet," Gaara said quietly. "How could anyone not love you?"

Thoughtlessly, Neji leaned a bit closer to his friend and smiled in return. How could he do anything but shine like the sun in Gaara's company? His hand may have moved and inch or two up Gaara's leg of its own accord, an action that he was neither aware of nor would he be opposed to. "Gaara, I—" he began softly.

Just then, the front door slammed shut. Neji's attention was instantly stolen. He stopped talking and looked back out into the hall. His hand removed itself quickly and his body leaned back away from Gaara. Gaara could not be bothered when Sai's presence filled the room though. He continued to admire Neji for a few moments longer before he was finally able to rip his eyes from that beauty. He refrained from glaring at Sai. This guy probably wasn't even aware that he was stealing something from Gaara that Gaara had never even truly had in the first place. The guy wasn't forcing Neji to like him. Neji had done that all on his own. So Gaara just left quietly. After a few more moments of silence, Sai closed the door and moved to stand in front of Neji, dropping an unopened letter in his lap. Sai continued to stare at the letter in Neji's hands when the latter picked it up and realized what it was.

Neji patted the bed beside him where Gaara had just been sitting. "Come on," he urged. "We'll do it together."

Slowly, Sai sat next to Neji and nodded. Neji offered Sai his best attempt at a comforting smile, but it felt more like a grimace. He decided to abandon that attempt and pat Sai's leg instead before breaking the seal on the envelope. He pulled the letter out, trying to ignore how raptly Sai followed his movements. When the letter was unfolded completely, Sai snatched it from Neji's fingers. He barely glanced at it before throwing it back in Neji's lap though.

"No!" Sai exclaimed, shaking his head and shutting his eyes tightly. "What was I thinking?! I don't wanna read it!"

Neji rubbed Sai's leg again before picking up the letter once more. He was only able to catch a mere glance at it, though, before Sai snatched it from his grip again. Then, moments later, it was thrown back into Neji's lap.

"No!" Sai exclaimed again. "No!" He took a deep breath and then went on in a softer tone, "You do it."

Neji sighed and picked the letter back up again. He paused for a few long moments, staring at Sai warily and anticipating his movements. Sai did not move though. He sat still, staring at the ground. Just as Neji was about to look back at the letter, Sai snatched it yet again. This time, Neji rolled his eyes and snatched it back.

"You really  _don't_  wanna read it, Sai," Neji assured. "They say all the shit you don't wanna hear."

"I read yours," Sai pointed out. "I already know what it says."

"You read it all?" Neji asked. "You didn't just skip to 'missing in action'?"

Sai flushed lightly. "Okay, I might have skipped a bit of it," he admitted. Neji raised a questioning brow. "Or a lot," Sai amended. "Or all," he added meekly after another short pause.

"Well, I've read the whole thing about a thousand times since then, and it's miserable," Neji assured. "I burnt it a few months back because of how miserable it was. They try their hands at all sorts of comforting words that mean nothing. All that stood out was 'missing in action' and that there was nothing they would do about it. It's hard to read." Neji added in a softer tone, "That's why I was always so thankful that you were there for me."

Sai nodded his head, giving Neji permission to continue. Neji took a deep breath and looked right to the spot that he had memorized on his own letter, where he knew the telling words would be. As he read them, his eyes instantly glazed over. No. God, no. Anything but that. Sai peeked up at his friend when Neji's breath caught in his throat.

"Dead?" Sai breathed out. His bottom lip instantly began quivering because he knew otherwise. Neji wouldn't have looked so mortified at death. Death was mercy compared to…

"Missing," Neji barely whispered.

Sai tried to contain himself by taking a few very deep breaths. In the end, tears overtook him. He found himself, once again, melded to Neji's chest. Neji cried with him too this time. For once, it was not because of Sasuke though. It was because of Haku. It was like being sentenced to hell all over again. It wasn't his husband this time, but it felt just the same. The rest of the morning was spent as Neji was used to spending them, except Sai did all the crying and Gaara was nowhere to be heard or seen.

Eventually, Sai cried himself back to sleep, and Neji was thankful for that. He wouldn't admit it to Sai, but he was kind of eager to be away from all of that overwhelming grief. He wiggled away from Sai and watched him for a few minutes, just to be sure that he was soundly asleep. When he was positive that Sai was out cold, he thumped on the wall quietly in hopes that Gaara hadn't left the apartment. He was glad to receive a quiet thump in reply, though it was a little too loud for Neji's liking. Sai stirred in his sleep at the noise but did not wake.

Neji and Gaara came out of their rooms at the same time and headed to the kitchen together. Gaara stayed quiet and waited patiently for Neji to speak first. He didn't want to pry or anything. Honestly, he wasn't even sure he wanted to hear about the dude in Neji's bed at all. So if Neji stayed silent all morning, Gaara wouldn't complain.

"I don't know what to do," Neji admitted quietly as he sat down at the island while Gaara busied himself with taking out ingredients to make omelets.

Gaara glanced over his shoulder but didn't stop his activities. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"About Sai… I don't know what to do," Neji said.

"I'm guessing that Sai is the guy sleeping in your bed," Gaara said, trying to keep any disdain from reaching his voice. He kicked the fridge shut, perhaps a bit more forcefully than intended, and ducked down to retrieve a pan from beneath the island.

"Yeah," Neji confirmed over the clanging. "He needs  _you_."

Gaara popped back up with a pan in hand and set it on the island quietly as he gave Neji a quizzical look. He really hoped that Neji wasn't suggesting that literally. Gaara had no desire to do anything at all with someone who came into his house and claimed Neji for his own.

"What?" Gaara asked.

Neji shrugged, staring down at the island counter top. "You were there for me when…" Neji trailed off because the ending to that sentence was obvious. "That's what he needs now, but I don't know how to be you."

Gaara leaned back against the counter beside the fridge and folded his arms across his chest. "So… it's like that?" he asked glumly.

Neji raised a brow and lifted his eyes. "Like what?"

"Like he's lost someone," Gaara supplied.

Neji sighed and looked down again. "Yeah. Haku was even in Sasuke's squad too," Neji replied.

Gaara nodded slowly and dropped his own eyes to the floor. "That's rough," he said quietly. That made it impossible to be mad at the guy. Now he would really have to put his jealousy to the side. He couldn't very well hate a grieving man seeking comfort. Could he? Hmm... No, he decided that he couldn't. He wasn't the fluffiest guy you could meet but he wasn't an asshole either, at least not without good reason.

"It makes me wonder," Neji said quietly.

"Wonder what?" Gaara asked, looking back up at his friend.

Neji grimaced a bit and swallowed thickly. "If Naruto…" he began, but he let that sentence die when his throat began to tighten with emotion. He didn't want to say the words aloud. No. Naruto, at least, had to come back. He just had to survive for a little bit longer. He had to come home.

Gaara quickly rounded the island and pulled Neji into a hug, holding Neji's head against his chest and rubbing Neji's arm. He cleared his throat, just to make sure that he wouldn't betray the emotion he felt himself. "Naruto will come back," he said confidently, "so don't even think that."

"But they were all in the same—" Neji began to protest.

"He'll come back," Gaara interrupted firmly.

Neji nodded against Gaara's chest. "So how do I fix Sai?" he asked after a short pause. Gaara stopped rubbing Neji's arm abruptly and sported a momentary scowl before releasing Neji entirely and sitting down on a stool beside him.

"I don't know," he said flatly, shrugging.

"But you fixed me," Neji argued. "You  _should_  know."

"Neji," Gaara began, "I didn't fix you. You're still…" He paused to collect himself. After all, he had been in love with Neji since childhood. It wasn't exactly easy admitting out loud that Neji was still grieving Sasuke because he was still in love with him and that Gaara didn't have the power to change that, no matter how much he tried. Just the topic of Sasuke at all, no matter how casual, was tough. "I don't know," Gaara said decidedly. "I just loved you like I always have, and that seemed to do some good."

Neji nodded, looking away and down the hall toward his bedroom. "Maybe I should just love him too then," he suggested.

Gaara narrowed his eyes with displeasure while Neji was safely looking away. It took some effort to control his tone of voice though. "Be careful how you use your words," he warned as lightly as he could manage.

Neji snorted, but kept looking toward where Sai lay sleeping. "I'm not trying to replace his dead husband," Neji said. "I just want to be the friend you've been for me."

Gaara snorted too. He sure hoped that Neji didn't want to be a friend just like him because  _he_  was in  _love_  with Neji. The last thing that Gaara wanted was Neji falling in love with Sai. That would just be way too much. Neji, of course, took the snort offensively. He snapped his head back to Gaara, who stone-faced immediately. He wasn't surprised at the sudden change in attitude. He knew how that snort must have sounded to Neji, who wasn't at all aware of his inner-monologue.

"What?" Neji asked sharply. "You don't think I can do it?"

"Of course I do," Gaara said kindly. "I think you can go above and beyond. This guy will feel like sunshine and puppies in the next couple of days just from you smiling at him."

Neji had to smile at the flattery, but he playfully slapped Gaara's hand and said, "Don't flatter me like a girl."

Gaara chuckled and lifted his hands in an innocent gesture. "If the heel fits," he joked.

Neji pushed Gaara lightly. "Shut up," he said.

"Just saying," Gaara jested.

"I'll shove that heel up your ass if you don't shut up," Neji warned as he pushed Gaara lightly again.

"So you admit to wearing heels?" Gaara asked jokingly. Neji pushed him again and laughed, starting a play fight. "Hey, I'm not judging you," Gaara continued to joke as he nudged Neji back lightly.

Neji pushed Gaara yet again but with a bit more force. "Shut up!" he said louder but the tone of humor was much more alive in his voice than it had been in months. Gaara poked Neji in one of his tickle spots in retaliation and was rewarded with a yelp of laughter.

When Neji decided to poke Gaara back, Gaara cried, "Don't!" Although, his voice was lost in a fit of laughter as Neji assaulted him further.

They continued to tickle each other relentlessly until they were both in hysterical laughter. Gaara, of course, came out on top, and Neji could do no more than whine hollow insults and pleas for forgiveness through his uncontrollable laughter. Neji jumped back from one especially ticklish poke and only narrowly escaped falling off the stool completely by clutching onto Gaara's shirt. He thought that, with his momentum, the fabric should have just slid through his fingers or else ripped.

At the same time that Neji instinctively yanked himself upward, Gaara reacted likewise in a desperate act to save Neji's ass. As a result of their simultaneous overcompensation, they were forced into an awfully precarious position, though neither would call it exactly awkward. Gaara, having leapt out of his own seat, ended up looming half-way over Neji's. Their chests had been drawn right up against each other with Neji's hands between the two, gripping Gaara's shirt like a lifeline. In an primitive need to latch onto anything that would save him, Neji's legs had managed to hook themselves around Gaara.

The instant that his shock wore off, Gaara's desire kicked in. He immediately tried to wiggle out of the embrace. Not because it was awkward or uncomfortable, but because it was was  _too_  comfortable. It was  _too_  acceptable for Gaara. He liked being in that position way too much, and so he was desperate to get away. Neji, however, tightened his legs and pulled Gaara back down the few inches that he had managed to wiggle away. Gaara was forced to meet Neji's gaze, but Neji's eyes did not betray anything that he was feeling.

Why did Neji just do that? Was it out of curiosity for what could unfold between the two? Was it out of a reflex for not wanting to fall again? Was it out of genuine feelings for Gaara? Was it out of loneliness at not having been so intimately close to anyone since Sasuke had gone off to war? Just what the fuck was it? Couldn't Neji see how desperately Gaara needed to know? It seemed that he could because his eyes quickly became apologetic and he let the redhead go. Gaara hesitated for a moment, just to revel in their proximity for a second, to remember how it had felt to be so close to Neji like that.

"I'm sorry?" Sai's uncertain voice said from behind them.

Gaara suddenly wanted to stay put, to challenge the stranger to take Neji from him, but now Neji was the one scrambling. He shoved Gaara away and struggled to sit properly on his seat. "It's nothing!" he exclaimed quickly.

Gaara stumbled backward and glared at the back of Neji's head. Why was he suddenly so quick for it to be nothing? Had he not just been the one to pull Gaara back in? Now, he was shoving Gaara away. Why did he have to justify anything to Sai? What did it matter what Sai thought? Unless, despite what he'd said, Neji really did like Sai. Maybe Neji  _did_  want to replace Sai's husband. Gaara scowled. He had almost believed that something was actually transpiring between them just then.

Sai shrugged. "It's cool if you guys are like… together. I should have guessed," he said.

"We're not!" Neji informed quickly.

Sai tried not to do it, but Gaara did not miss the way that Sai's shoulders relaxed with relief or the pleased glance that he flitted in Gaara's direction. Gaara was sure that Sai didn't miss the glare that Gaara was giving him either. Neji was impervious to the aura of possession that Gaara projected around him. Perhaps he was just used to that type of energy from his friend, energy that he must have always taken to be of the friendly variety. Sai, however, was not impervious to that aura, and he did not take it as a friendly type at all, for that was not the type that it was. That energy, in fact, was so strong that Sai wouldn't have been surprised if it sprouted hands and choked him to death.

It took some effort for Gaara to relax. Eventually, he was able to unclench his fists and smooth out his shirt though. Just in time too because it was at the very same time that Neji glanced back to see why Sai was watching Gaara so intently. Gaara met Neji's eyes only momentarily before walking away to his room without a word. He tried to ignore what he knew would be a smug look from Sai. Sai must have known that he was winning this silent game of who's whose, and Gaara did not like that at all. He officially hated Sai and yes, he decided that he could very well hate a grieving man seeking comfort. He could hate him a lot, and he definitely did.

"Gaara?" Neji called after his friend worriedly.

Gaara waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder before very nearly slamming his door. Moments later, his music began to blare. Neji rubbed his nose in frustration, and Sai shifted uncomfortably. Sai didn't really intend to piss Gaara off. It wasn't on purpose or anything. It wasn't his fault if Gaara was in unrequited love though. What was Sai supposed to do, force Neji to love Gaara back? He couldn't help it if he was getting in the way. He also couldn't help it if he felt a bit triumphant, like he'd just  _won_  Neji or something. He didn't even think he  _wanted_  Neji. He hadn't even intended to stay even just one night here, but Neji was so inviting. Sai kind of wanted to stick around for a bit longer. Gaara would just have to deal with that. Maybe Sai did want Neji... just a little bit.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Sai was in decent spirits, or at least he wasn't bawling his eyes out. While they were watching TV, Neji compulsively glanced over his shoulder and Sai knew that he was hoping Gaara would come out of his room. When Gaara finally did leave his room, it was to leave the apartment altogether. Neji shot up off the couch and jumped over the back anyway, unaware that Gaara would only glance at his nervous stance dispassionately before leaving without a single word. Had Neji known that Gaara would have disregarded him so blatantly, or that he would end up looking so embarrassingly crestfallen, or that he would have to force himself not to cry, he would have just kept staring at the TV. He wasn't going to ask Sai to comfort him now though. It was supposed to be his job to comfort Sai. If Gaara wasn't there to comfort him though, if Gaara was the  _cause_  of his distress, then whose job was it to comfort Neji? For a moment, he thought about just saying "fuck it" and crumbling into Sai's lap. Instead, he chose to text Gaara.

**[text] Where are you going?**

Neji vacantly watched the television as he awaited Gaara's reply. He didn't absorb a single word that was spoken for the entire ten minutes that he waited though. When the reply finally came, he flipped his phone open in record speed.

**[text] Out.**

Neji rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in frustration.

**[text] Yeah. I figured that much, genius. You have to work tomorrow though. When will you be home?**

After five more excruciating minutes of waiting, Neji chose to not even close his phone. Instead, he stared at the screen restlessly. When the answer finally came, his eyes, which had been glazing over, snapped to attention.

**[text] Yes, mother, I know. I'm a big boy. I'll come and go as I please.**

Neji huffed and decided not to text Gaara back. He knew better than to pester Gaara when he was in a mood. He decided that it was best to just leave him alone, unless he wanted Sai to witness one of the epic fights that they could muster up when Gaara returned. Gaara and Neji hadn't fought in forever. Neji guessed that it was because he had been too fragile to butt heads. Neji must have really crossed a line now though. He just shouldn't have pulled Gaara back earlier. That had obviously made Gaara uncomfortable. Now, he probably thought that Neji was going to start crossing all sorts of boundaries. That was probably why he was so eager to get away.

It definitely seemed like something that Gaara would yell about, especially judging by his behavior thus far. He could easily come home and tear Neji a new one if he was pushed far enough. Neji didn't want Sai to witness that. Hell, he didn't want to witness it himself. He liked the comfortable atmosphere that he and Gaara had formed. Even if they had been friends for years, they could fight a lot and over the stupidest shit too. They were the only ones who could push each other's buttons so much. Neji never even fought with Sasuke, and they were married, but he had always fought with Gaara. They had butted heads ever since Neji could remember. Even if they fought a lot, they were still the best of friends. Neji liked his life with Gaara without the fighting though. It was peaceful. It was nice to have Gaara in a softer, sweeter way.

The one good thing that came of Sasuke's peril was that Neji and Gaara had nothing stupid to fight over anymore. Not only had Neji become too brittle to rustle up, but he had become so bland and empty too. He had lost a lot of his opinions and personality. Everything that irked him about Gaara before was suddenly meaningless. Everything that they would have disagreed on was pointless. The only life that Neji had begun to draw back into himself had taken five months to gather and it went only to the extent of what he loved about Gaara. He couldn't muster up the energy to fret over the things that he used to hate. Ever since Gaara had become the nurturing friend that Neji always knew was in there, Neji could see nothing more than how perfectly perfect Gaara was. Now, however, Neji had fucked all of that up. Things were probably just going to get weird. He just had to go and rock the boat. Awesome. Just awesome.

The rest of the day was eventless. Neji and Sai sat quietly, each feeling depressed for their own personal reasons. Eventually, Neji gave up waiting for Gaara to return and suggested that they just go to sleep. Once in the bedroom, Sai's previously even attitude became a whole other story. He broke into tears because he couldn't stop thinking of Haku, so Neji had to comfort him. Neji was glad for Sai's sadness though. In his desire to be there for Sai, he lost almost every inclination to breakdown into tears himself. He was, in a weird way, glad that Sai's grief could stifle his own for the time being, especially since there would be no Gaara to mop up his mess afterward.

"I have to be up at eight tomorrow," Neji said quietly after quite a while of silence as he rubbed Sai's back. Sai was, luckily, in between fits of misery and lying calmly.

Sai cleared his throat, but his voice still came out hoarse. "Of course you do," he said sadly. "I'll be fine. Don't worry. I'll… um… I'll… I'll just be fine"

Neji sighed. "I don't want you to be alone. I can have someone come over. My friends are wonderful people," he insisted. "They'll understand. Someone can take a day off. Uh… Kiba! Yeah! Kiba's an artist. He makes his own hours. He'd be glad to come keep you company. He's wonderful company. He really is. He's such a great guy. He'd really make you—"

"I'll be fine," Sai interrupted softly. He could feel Neji tense up though, belaying that he wasn't convinced. "Leave his number. If I get really upset, I'll call him," Sai offered.

Neji breathed a sigh of relief. That would do. "Okay," he agreed.

Sai sighed heavily when he glanced at the clock and saw that it was midnight. "Better get some sleep," he suggested. "You don't wanna be tired when you get up." He rolled away from Neji's side, but he felt instantly lonely on the other side of the bed. Neji had other things to worry about though. It wasn't like he could just stay up all night comforting Sai… but Sai couldn't help it if he needed Neji. He really couldn't, could he?

Neji shifted so that he was lying in a more comfortable position. He could hear Sai's breathing get heavy, and he knew that it was just a matter of moments before Sai turned back around to seek comfort. It was a noble attempt on Sai's part, and Neji appreciated it, but he'd been running on empty for months. He was  _always_  tired when he woke up. Plus, Gaara was like a boost of energy in the morning for Neji. He'd go to work feeling alright, even when he woke up dead tired. He didn't mind it if Sai monopolized more of his time. He didn't mind it at all.

As if summoned, Sai did turn back around and with tears in his eyes. Neji smiled and lifted an arm, inviting his friend to snuggle close, and Sai did just that. Luckily, he didn't cry much that night and Neji  _did_  have the chance to get quite a bit of sleep. He didn't sleep though. He tried knocking on the wall four separate times but got no reply. He knew that Gaara wasn't home because he would have heard him come in. He kept knocking anyway though, wishing that he could just receive a reply so that he could fall asleep.

Somewhere near 2 in the morning, Neji heard Gaara finally return. He listened to every step that Gaara took raptly and concluded that Gaara had definitely been drinking. If the heavy footsteps weren't indication enough, then the sound of Gaara slamming into his unopened door and grunting in pain definitely was. Neji fought the urge to go take care of Gaara because he knew that he probably wouldn't be received well. He heard Gaara enter his room and shuffle about for a bit. Finally, he stopped rustling around and very, very lightly knocked twice on the wall, taking extra care not to make it too loud. Then, he fell heavily onto his bed. Neji smiled wide. He knew that Gaara wouldn't be expecting it, but he was awake and he had been waiting to do exactly this all night. He knocked back a bit louder, just to be sure that Gaara would hear it. He heard the other shift once more on the bed before falling completely silent. Neji just listened to the silence for a while. After ten minutes, he decided that Gaara was asleep, so he was finally able to fall asleep himself.

Getting up was relatively easy. Sai wasn't glued to Neji or anything. The trick was just getting out of the cocoon of blankets that Sai had made around the  _both_  of them. Fortunately, Sai was not a light sleeper. Neji was finally able to free himself and go about his morning routine, feeling like the zombie that he always felt like until Gaara would wake up and brighten his day. He brewed the coffee, showered, blow-dried his long hair, got dressed, brushed his teeth, put a fresh towel on the rack by the tub for Gaara, checked his briefcase for all its contents, checked Gaara's briefcase for all its contents, toasted his toast while he poured his and Gaara's coffee, and then he waited.

By then, Gaara would normally be coming out of his room to drink his coffee and eat before taking a shower. He always made himself a decent breakfast because he had the time. Neji just settled on toast, even if he wished he could eat breakfast with Gaara instead, but he still liked to share the first sip of coffee with Gaara in the mornings. It was like a little tradition between them. Gaara would come out of his room looking all cute and disheveled, they would sip their coffee together, then Neji would say his goodbye and leave while Gaara cooked his breakfast before getting ready himself. Now, however, Gaara was nowhere to be seen. Neji peered down the hall to Gaara's bedroom door while restlessly tapping his coffee cup. He checked his watch and sighed. He grabbed his keys from the bowl beside the door and made to leave. Just as he was halfway out the door though, he remembered Sai. He had almost just left without leaving Kiba's number.

He checked his watch again. He could spare a couple of minutes. He set his briefcase and coffee down and closed the door, then he hurried down toward his bedroom. He had to stop his jaw from dropping in shock when Gaara came out of his room looking completely awake. Had he just been waiting for Neji to leave? The guilty look Gaara sported told Neji that he had been doing exactly that. Neji wanted to roll his eyes or do something else to portray his dismay, but all he could feel were tears in the corners of his eyes. Quickly, he turned away and entered his room without a word. Gaara watched Neji skeptically for a moment because Neji should have been gone, but then he scowled when he realized that it must have included Sai. Instead of watching whatever sickening exchange would unfold, Gaara went down to the kitchen.

Neji looked at Sai's sleeping form and frowned when he got up close. He was looking so weary again. Thoughtlessly, Neji brushed a few strands of hair out of the way and lightly stroked Sai's cheek. He leaned down and placed a feather light kiss on Sai's forehead because that was what Gaara would have done. Well, at least he would have before Neji had to go and get all weird on Gaara. Quickly, he wrote down Kiba's information on a sticky note and then stuck it to Sai's forehead. He felt a prickle of amusement when he stepped back and looked at his work, but it didn't bubble up quite enough. It seemed that his laughter still belonged solely to Gaara. Sai wasn't a very mobile sleeper. He shifted once or twice in the night but it was just to lift an arm over his head or move a leg. He didn't toss and turn, so the note would be there when he woke up for sure. Neji patted the blankets covering his friend gently and then left after quickly scrawling up another sticky note to stick elsewhere.

When he entered the kitchen, Neji stared sadly at the back of Gaara's head, which was buried in the fridge. His best friend had purposely tried to skip their morning coffee. Maybe it meant nothing to Gaara, but it was what got Neji out of bed in the mornings. He would never have been able to go back to work without Gaara. Determined to look unperturbed though, Neji quickly gathered his briefcase back up and stuck the note in his hand firmly to the fridge door in passing. He had to snicker when Gaara yelped in pain. He hadn't meant to send the door flying into Gaara's head but it happened anyway, and it was kind of funny. Gaara glared around the fridge door at Neji, but Neji just shrugged and grabbed his coffee cup. Maybe Gaara kind of deserved it anyway.

"Wait!" Gaara said quickly.

Neji paused half way through the door and leaned back on his heels to see into the apartment again. "What?" he asked.

Gaara picked up his coffee mug and held it out expectantly with a timid smile on his lips. Neji looked at the mug, then at Gaara, then back at the mug, then at his own cup, and then back at Gaara. He sighed and smirked. He couldn't even pretend to be mad at Gaara, so he moved back into the apartment and tapped his cup lightly against Gaara's. They traded smirks before taking their first sips simultaneously.

"That hurt," Gaara complained, touching his forehead gingerly once he had lowered his mug. Neji set down his briefcase and coffee cup to free up his hands. He removed Gaara's hand with one of his own and gently rubbed the forming bump with his other hand.

"I'm sorry," Neji said quietly, trying and failing to fake a remorseful pout. Gaara wanted to smile at how cute Neji looked. Instead, he pouted a real pout when Neji abandoned his sorry expression in favor of more snickering.

"It's not funny," Gaara said.

"It's a little funny," Neji argued with a mischievous smirk that was followed by another snicker.

Gaara pulled his hand from Neji's and swatted the one tending to his bruise away. "It's not funny," he repeated grumpily.

"It's a little funny," Neji insisted even more giddily. He tried to stifle his chuckles, but Gaara's attempt at a glare was doing nothing to help with that endeavor. In the end, Gaara gave in and snorted lightly with just a smidgen of laughter. The small gesture prompted Neji to start chuckling anew, not that he had ever really stopped to begin with.

"It's a  _little_  funny," Gaara finally agreed. And why shouldn't he? He was unable to argue with the light that filled Neji's eyes. If a little thump on the head was all it took to ease their tension and push them back into the comfortable life they had been sharing, then Gaara would deal with the bruise.

"I  _am_  sorry though," Neji said a bit more seriously, though amusement still played at every one of his features. "I really didn't mean to hurt you," he added while he softly touched the bump again, which had evolved into a big knot within a matter of seconds. Neji grimaced, showing real remorse this time. "I really didn't," he swore, looking all sorts of apologetic.

Thoughtlessly, Gaara reached up and laid his hand atop Neji's hand and smiled. Neji didn't seem to mind the contact at all, but Gaara literally stopped breathing when he realized exactly what he was doing. He was supposed to be easing tension, not recreating it. He didn't remove his hand, though that may have just been due to the fact that he felt as paralyzed as a deer in headlights. Neji was unfazed though. He simply brushed his thumb over the bruise once more before smoothly slipping his hand out from underneath Gaara's, only to pulled him, instead, into a hug. Gaara barely had the time to process Neji's hands pressing into the small of his back or Neji's breath brushing up against his neck, let alone time to gather his wits enough to hug the other back, before Neji was already pulling away.

"Have a nice day," Neji said more brightly than he did on any other typical morning. It felt a lot nicer to Neji this day though, because he had almost had to leave without saying it. It was curious how one little morning ritual sculpted his entire day.

"Back at ya," Gaara replied less easily than he normally did, unable to let Neji's casual attitude rub off on him too. He was a bit shell-shocked. He just wasn't sure exactly what was happening between them.

"I will," Neji assured with a happy nod of the head.

For what felt like the millionth time that morning, Neji gathered his things and left feeling happier than he could ever remember feeling when it came to leaving for work. He checked his watch again as he waited for the elevator. He tsked when realized that he had taken more than just a couple of minutes, but they were minutes well spent if they were minutes with Gaara. Thank god Gaara was out of his mood and thank god Hinata was so understanding. She would let it slide, especially after Neji explained his situation. Hell, she might even insist that he take some time off, even if he had only just gotten back to work the previous month.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the apartment and was surprised to see that Gaara was leaning half out of the doorway watching him. He smiled and lifted his briefcase hand to wave goodbye just as the elevator dinged. Gaara looked a bit caught off guard, but then he smiled and waved back. Neither man could wipe the grin off his face as they held each other's gaze until the elevator doors closed between them. Even then, they both continued to smile to themselves.

Gaara stayed staring at the closed elevator doors for a few more moments before finally retreating back into the apartment. The rest of his morning passed as it normally did, except his thoughts of Neji were a bit more muddled than usual. Nonetheless, he drank his coffee, ate, showered, dressed, gathered his things which Neji always so thoughtfully laid out for him, grabbed his keys from the bowl beside the door, and then left feeling content. He had done it all without having to meet Sai even once too. That was what put the extra pep in his step this morning, or maybe it was just Neji. Either way, it was going to be a good day.

When Sai finally woke up, the note was, indeed, still stuck to his forehead. When he read it over, he couldn't help but smile at Neji's choice of ending.

 

> **835-7642 is Kiba's number. I**  
>  **already told him you might call.**  
>  **835-5607 is Gaara's number,**  
>  **if you really need it. Love you.**

He wasn't thrilled about Kiba, but that last "love you" made him feel giddy. What was this feeling? It had been so long since he'd felt so excited. Could he be falling for Neji so easily? It took some time, but Sai did eventually get out of bed and take a shower. He ended up dressing in Neji's clothes, just until he could find some time to go down to his car and get his suitcase. He went to find something to eat in the kitchen and smiled again when he found the note stuck on the fridge for him.

 

> **I'm calling you at lunch.**

Neji sure made Sai feel… good. Good. He felt good… but that was so wrong. Was it? Yes. He couldn't feel good. No. Good was not in his vocabulary anymore. His appetite was lost, so he trudged back to the bedroom. He could only stare at the bed from the doorway though. He couldn't even cross that threshold into the room. That was where Neji had made him feel so comforted and safe and… good. Then, Sai began to cry. Those emotions were supposed to be reserved for Haku. Good was Haku's territory. Sai was Haku's. Haku. Haku. Haku. Haku was dead though. No, not even that. Haku was missing. He didn't even have the decency to be dead. He couldn't just be finished, over, gone. He had to be missing. He had to be possibly-coming-back-someday. He had to be maybe-dead-and-maybe-not. He had to be you'll-never-fucking-know. That was the truth though. Sai may never know, and he may never be able to feel good again just because of that.

Sai didn't even bother going back to the bed. He shouldn't be warm and comfortable because his Haku was missing. He wanted to be missing too. He didn't want to be alone for even another moment, but being with anyone other than Haku felt so wrong, especially when it was Neji… or maybe Neji was the only exception. Fuck. Sai had no clue. All he knew was that he felt especially miserable, and he did  _not_  want to call a "great guy" like Kiba, who was allegedly "wonderful company". He wanted Haku… or Neji… or… Fuck! He didn't know.

He could want Neji, but he couldn't have him anyway. Even if he could convince himself that these feelings were alright, Neji was already taken. Neji was Gaara's and that was an obvious fact. Neji had probably always been Gaara's and he probably always would be. They were like a magnetic force. They would seek each other out instinctively. Sai could see it written all over Gaara's face. Neji was either absolutely daft or he simply didn't care though. Either way, Sai was stepping on Gaara's toes just by being there. Sai was not a selfish man though. He didn't want to cause trouble. He could seek comfort elsewhere. He had a loving family waiting for him to come home just to comfort him, in fact.

He reminded himself that he had come with a purpose in mind. He was supposed to talk to Neji. Then, he was supposed to leave. He couldn't be roped into staying any longer. In fact, he couldn't even stay another minute. He had to leave. He had to go home to his family. He had to go now. Being here was just so confusing... for everyone. He had to just get done what needed to be done, but he would do that in the living room and far away from that bed.


	2. A Sea of Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don't want to get into detail. Let's just accept the fact that Naruto, Sasuke, and Haku are off fighting some war, somewhere, in some time, for some reason. I'm not getting fancy. Also, I'm giving this fic a song! It is Fix You by Coldplay :) It pretty much goes from each to the other in their own ways.
> 
> This is where the self-harm trigger warning comes into play.

Neji checked his phone for the billionth time that afternoon. Why hadn't Sai called him back? Neji was sure it was nothing. Sai was probably just sleeping. He was fine… definitely fine. Neji was worrying for absolutely no reason at all, even if he did tell Sai that he'd be calling at lunch and Sai still hadn't answered. That was nothing though. Sai probably just never got up to look at the note. Hell, he may have just slept all day and never even read the first one. It was no big deal. Nevertheless, Neji practically shot out of work like a rocket when Hinata came into his office and told him to just go home because his tension was reaching her all the way in her own office across the floor.

Neji wasted no time in getting home. He was sure that he'd at least tripled the speed limit at one point. He wanted to burst into the house and scream for Sai, but he chose to do something much less obnoxious. Sai was probably sleeping, so he quietly let himself in. He used all of his self-restraint to go about his normal activities. He put his keys quietly in the designated key bowl, stowed his briefcase by the coat rack, hung up his coat, loosened his tie, went to the sink to wash his coffee cup, but stopped when he saw the note on the fridge. He set his cup down on the island and chose to read the note instead.

 **I hate to have to do this in a**   **letter.** That already sounded bad. **Things were getting confusing though. I was feeling some things for you that I don't think I should have felt. I still love Haku and you… well… I think that the issue there is obvious.**  Was it? Because Neji didn't think so. Was Sai referring to Sasuke?  **I wish I had the strength to do this in person. I wish I could say all of this to your face so that I could at least be there to comfort you if you need it, but you'll have Gaara. That's all you really need. Just know that I love you and that I'm sorry.** It was sounding  _really_  bad now. **This letter is to admit so much more than just some feelings that I may have had for you.**

 **Haku called me a couple of weeks before he went missing and what he told me was... disturbing. He had witnessed a relationship form out there.** Okay, this was sounding really,  _really_  bad. **He had seen two of his close friends grow much closer.**  Too bad to handle. Way too bad. **It must have been a combination of the distance and your marital issues that pushed Sasuke to do this.** Neji's blood ran cold. No way.  **Of course, that's still no excuse. Haku was struggling with the information for a while. He didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, he told me though.**   **He overheard Sasuke saying that he was going to talk to you about it and Haku trusted that he really would.** No fucking way.  **That was before Sasuke went missing though.** Oh, dear God. No.  **I'm sorry, Neji… but Sasuke and Naruto…**  Ohh, God. No. Neji was not reading this.  **They must have fallen in love.** Ohhh, God. No. He couldn't be reading this.  **There's just no other way that Sasuke would have betrayed his vows.** Ohhhh, God. No. Sasuke wouldn't.  **He was with Naruto though and Haku said that it wasn't just**   **sex.**  Ohhhhh, God. No. **It was real.** Ohhhhhh, God! Noooo! **He said he would have seen it coming even if they weren't out there for so long.** By then, Neji's hands were trembling.

 **I hope you can forgive me for telling you this way. I hope you can forgive Haku for keeping it a secret. And I hope you can forgive Naruto and Sasuke too. No one can control love. I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I'm just so sorry in general. Maybe you saw it coming. Things with Sasuke weren't as perfect as you wanted them to**   **be. Please, call me sometime. Let's not lose touch again.**

**Love you.**

Fuck.

Neji let Sai's letter fall to the floor. What had he just read? His husband had started a relationship with one of their best friends while away at war? Just how the fuck was Neji supposed to handle that? He wanted to think and to rationalize, but all he could do was sink down to the floor and stare blankly at the fridge door. After a while, he really thought that he was okay, that he wasn't going to cry. Maybe this was it, the moment when things changed. Maybe he could move on now. Maybe the grieving had finally ceased. Maybe he was actually free.

Gaara did not come home for what must have been hours. Expecting Sai to be there, he was in no rush to leave work. When Gaara did get home though, the reality of the whole situation finally hit Neji. The emotional vacancy that he had been reveling in dissipated. The uncertainty, the insecurity, the misery, the betrayal, the hurt, and the tears all found him in one overwhelming instant. When he peered up at Gaara's face, he saw a man who had never failed him. He saw a man who had never hurt him. He saw a man worth fighting for. He wanted to see all of that in thoughts of Sasuke though. He wanted to remember his husband as a great, wonderful, committed man. He wanted to part ways both with Sasuke's body and memory gently, in an admirable fashion. Why did Sasuke have to shame his own self and make it impossible for Neji to do that?

Essentially, it must have been Gaara's perfection that sealed Neji's fate that evening. It must have been how easily he overshadowed the man that Neji had married, had trusted, and had  _loved_  that brought Neji to tears. He wasn't sure exactly what kind of tears that they were, but he didn't feel like he had the emotional capacity to figure that out. All he could do was cry. In fact, it felt like all he had ever done was cry and it was all that he ever would do. When Gaara fell to the floor to comfort his friend, Neji cried even harder. When Gaara tried to speak to him, he continued to cry some more. He trusted Gaara to read the letter and figure it all out for himself while he simply cried. Gaara did figure it out and carried Neji, incapable of even sitting upright anymore, to a bedroom. Then, Gaara tucked Neji into a bed. All the while, Neji just kept on crying.

The emotional distress must have just knocked him out because he found himself waking up in Gaara's bed sometime the next morning, except Gaara wasn't there. Neji just lay quietly and stared at the ceiling. He faintly recalled Gaara singing to him, so he latched on to that. He played the soothing tune over repeatedly in his head and chose to focus on absolutely nothing but the sound of Gaara's voice. When Gaara came back from his shower, Neji just kept staring blankly at the ceiling. Gaara didn't realize that Neji was awake until after he had fully dressed and glanced over to check on him. Neji was still none the wiser of Gaara's presence though. He was wrapped up in the Gaara in his head. When Gaara sat down on the edge of the bed though, Neji finally startled out of his trance. For a moment, his eyes remained distant when they landed on Gaara. Then, they filled with confusion. Then, they filled with tears, tears that Neji couldn't explain. Why was he crying? What for?

Gaara tried to comfort Neji, but he was short on time. He was already going to be late for work as it was. It took all of Neji's willpower to let Gaara go. He wanted nothing more than to remain in his company, but Gaara had to go and Neji had to let him. Gaara hurriedly informed Neji that he had already talked to Hinata and that Neji didn't have to worry about work. Neji tried to thank Gaara, but he couldn't stop crying long enough to actually form words. The difficulty of leaving was tenfold for Gaara. It took a lot to actually kick his own ass into gear and leave Neji. He didn't even make a cup of coffee. Partly because Neji always brewed the coffee and partly because it felt weird to drink it alone.

Once Neji heard the front door shut with finality, he rolled over and cried twice as hard into the pillow that Gaara must have slept with because it smelled just like him and that was comforting. He didn't want to be alone. He felt so cold, even as he was wrapped in Gaara's blankets. Suddenly, it all felt so wrong to him. He was crying tears for  _Sasuke_ into  _Gaara's_  pillow. At least he thought that they were tears for Sasuke. He still wasn't all that sure why he was crying. Even if they weren't tears of grief, they were still, certainly, connected to Sasuke somehow though. That much seemed obvious. Neji thought it wrong that he was finding comfort in  _Gaara's_  room from the wounds that  _Sasuke_ had inflicted.

How could he have ever sought refuge from Sasuke in Gaara's arms? They may be best friends, but Neji had TenTen too. He didn't have to run to Gaara. He couldn't deny that things had  _always_  been different between Gaara and himself, especially over the last couple of days. What was he doing here? More importantly, why was Gaara letting Neji do it to him? Even more importantly, why was Neji letting himself do it to Gaara? Most important of all, was Neji truly over Sasuke? Did he really want to be so close to Gaara or was it truly just comfort that he sought? Was there real love between them, love untouched by Sasuke? Were there true bonds that went deeper than friendship, bonds like Sasuke had made with Naruto? Was it okay to be so encased in Gaara and still grieve Sasuke at the same time? Was he even grieving Sasuke anymore? What were the tears for? What was he feeling? Whatever it was, it made him feel dirty, like Gaara's room was the wrong place to be.

Neji decidedly left Gaara's room and ended up standing before his own door, staring down his own bed. He didn't really want to be there either. Unable to find any other place that better fit his mood, Neji settled on curling up in the bathtub. He continued to cry in there for a while. Eventually, he did stop though. The tears dried up and he simply stared at the wall in front of him, thinking of nothing but how white it was. Thinking was hard. It was complicated. It was easier to be empty, so empty it was. He was so empty, in fact, that he didn't even hear his phone ringing, not the first time and, certainly, not the eighth. So it was no surprise that Gaara was staring relentlessly at the clock in his office as he tapped his pen impatiently against the edge of his desk. The very moment that the second hand hit the twelve and it was exactly three o'clock, he buzzed his secretary on his desk phone.

"Yes, sir?" she asked promptly over the intercom.

"I'm going home early today, Yuko. Please tell my brother for me," he said simply.

"Of course, sir," she answered obediently.

There were perks to working as an executive at one of the top companies in the world. There were even more perks when that company had your last name. There were even _more_  perks when your elder brother was just handed the title of CEO by your father and when said brother was extremely relaxed. He never chided Gaara for leaving early, as long as he got there on time in the mornings. Because Gaara had been late today though, he knew that Kankuro would make a big deal of it if he left too early. Three seemed like a decent time because it was only three hours before he normally got off, and he really needed to go home early today. He had to get back to Neji.

He lingered for a few minutes extra, just to see if Kankuro would call down to him in protest. Yuko was prompt. She would have called up to him the second that she finished speaking with Gaara. No call came though, so Gaara left hastily. He, of course, still managed to produce an air of leisure that masked his worried pace. If you hadn't known Gaara well, you wouldn't even know that he was rushing. Even if he was moving fast, he just seemed like he was sauntering carelessly, like he was taking a stroll in the park.

He kindly wished Yuko a good afternoon on his way out. He spared an occasional nod in the general direction of a few of the many men and women who scrambled to greet him as he walked by. He shook hands with one of the very few of his subordinates that were not limited to the occasional nod as the man came out of the elevator. They shared a short exchange in which Gaara said the man's name with the faintest tinge of a smirk and the man nodded briskly in return, accepting that exchange like it was his payroll. To everyone but a very select few, Gaara was just the boss and they never got anything from him that wasn't out of pure politeness, not a shake of the hand nor vocal recognition unless it was absolutely necessary. Even outside of work, Gaara came off very impersonal-like. He was only warm with his friends, and even then he was still pretty stiff. Neji was the sole exception.

Gaara was so eager to get home to Neji that he completely ignored the people calling out goodbyes to him in the lobby in favor of focusing on his friend. Neji hadn't answered any of Gaara's eight calls, and Gaara was definitely worried. Neji wasn't exactly in a good place at the time being. He wasn't exactly easy to trust when left alone in such an emotional state either, at least not with his track record. He had developed some pretty questionable tendencies in the first few months after Sasuke, tendencies that had Gaara imagining a bathtub full of blood. That thought turned his stomach over. He wanted to be back with Neji as soon as possible, so he had no problem breaking the speed limit more than once on his way home. Getting home was easy enough. Going inside, not so much. Part of him wanted to burst in and bark out questions, and part of him wanted to sneak away for a while longer.

He was a good friend. He always had been. It was hard not to do whatever it took to be a good friend when you were in love with that person though. Because he was so devoted to Neji, Gaara would always be there. He was there when Neji first started dating Sasuke, supporting a relationship he despised. He was there at their engagement party, making toasts for a man he had always loved. He was standing there beside Neji at their wedding, holding Sasuke's ring for safe keeping. He was there when they moved onto the base three hours away, moving boxes of their stuff into the bedroom that they would share. He was there when things got rough between them, insisting that Neji try to work things out. He was there when Sasuke disappeared, drying tears that sprang from a love that was not for Gaara. He had always been there, so he would be there now too.

Even if it killed Gaara to see Neji like this, especially when it was because of Sasuke, he would be there. Even if he wanted Neji to look at him with loving eyes, eyes that did not still seek Sasuke, he would be there. He had to be... for Neji. So he let himself in, threw his keys in the key bowl, dropped his briefcase beside Neji's, shrugged off his coat, took his tie off, and then, when he would have normally walked down to his room, stood there silently to muster up the strength to put his feelings aside. He was just peering around the island and down at the bedrooms when Neji called his name softly from what sounded to be the bathroom. His voice was meek but still so hoarse. Gaara sighed. He could guess what had caused such a rasp in his friend's voice.

"Yeah?" Garra called back. He turned and leaned against the island, waiting to hear a reply. He warded away any thoughts of blood and bathtubs. Instead, he chose to assume that Neji was just doing what most people did in bathrooms. He definitely wasn't going to go stand outside the door while he was doing it either.

"C-Come here?" Neji asked.

"Alright," Gaara replied warily as he walked to the bathroom. He noticed that the door was halfway open though, so he rounded the corner and strode in. He stopped and raised a skeptical brow. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Why are you in the tub?" He was glad to see it free of red though. Safe... for now. There was no telling what Neji would do the next day though, or the days after that.

"I didn't… um… I didn't feel right in the bed," Neji admitted meekly, blushing and peering up at Gaara from the tub.

"You could have gone to your own then," Gaara said, ignoring that twinge of annoyance that surged through him at the thought of Neji not liking his bed.

"I didn't feel right there either," Neji replied. Gaara smirked internally and the annoyance waned. At least he wasn't just against Gaara's bed.

"What for?" Gaara asked.

Neji shrugged. "I just don't really  _want_  to feel warm," he answered quietly. Gaara grimaced when Neji's voice broke slightly at the end. He moved to sit on the edge of the tub and reached down to touch Neji's knee.

"Being cold isn't going to help," Gaara assured.

Neji looked up at him miserably. "What will?" he asked.

"I will," Gaara said with a warm smile, a smile that struck Neji dumb. Gaara had a beautiful smile. Had he never noticed before? "If you let me," Gaara added. Neji nodded slowly and downcasted his eyes. Gaara took one of Neji's hands and pulled him to his feet. "I'm home now, so you don't have to be alone," he said quietly.

Gaara let Neji lean into him as they moved themselves out of the bathroom. They stopped just outside the bathroom door and Gaara looked to his friend for direction. Neji glanced at Gaara and then nodded to Gaara's room. He wouldn't say so out loud, but Gaara cheered a bit on the inside because Neji  _did_  like his bed. Even if that meant nothing in the way of how Neji felt toward Gaara, Neji still liked his bed. That alone was enough to make Gaara feel wanted.

Like a child, Gaara tucked Neji in and combed his fingers through Neji's hair until the man fell asleep. Once he was sure that Neji was knocked out, he retreated to the kitchen with intents to find some dinner, if either of them even really wanted to eat it. He leaned his forehead against his fridge and sighed instead. He couldn't bear watching Neji feel so lost. Gaara actually wished that he could just be Sasuke so that he could make things better for Neji, even if he also wished that just being himself was enough. Neji was not in love with him though. He was in love with Sasuke, even if the bastard was missing  _and_  an infidel. **  
**

* * *

"Come on. Pick up. Pick up."

"Hello."

Gaara frowned at the sad voice that answered him. "You sound… Are you in the bathtub again?" Silence. Gaara sighed. "You can't just sit in the tub all day."

"Yes, I can," Neji argued feebly.

Gaara sighed again. "Did you eat today?" he asked.

"Not hungry," Neji answered.

"You weren't hungry for a long time and then you lost so much weight that you looked like a skeleton," Gaara informed, "so eat anyway."

"Not hungry," Neji repeated.

"Just eat one egg," Gaara suggested. Silence. "Or just something," he amended. Silence. " _Anything_ ," Gaara pleaded.

Neji sighed. "Fine," he agreed.

Gaara breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you feeling any better today?" he inquired. Silence. That was a no. "You know, Kiba would probably love—"

"No," Neji interrupted. "I don't wanna see a happy face when all I feel is misery." He vaguely wondered if this was how Sai had felt when Neji had tried to force Kiba on him.

"Neji—" Gaara began worriedly.

"I'm fine," Neji interjected.

"But—" Gaara began again.

"Gaara," Neji nearly whined.

Gaara sighed. "I'm just worried about you."

"I know," Neji said softly, "and I appreciate that, but I just want some time to process this."

"But you don't have to do it in solitude," Gaara insisted. "There was a time when solitude almost pushed you to commit suicide."

Neji sighed heavily. "You're the only company I can stand," he admitted. "You're all I want, so please don't force anyone else on me."

Gaara ignored how suggestive that could have sounded because he knew that it meant no such thing. Neji had meant that platonically. Gaara could not and would not let his heart get ahead of himself. "Alright," he conceded reluctantly, "but if you don't get out of that tub in the next couple of days, I will force company on you."

Neji snorted. "Whatever."

Gaara smiled. That was close enough to laughter for him. "I'll see you at 6:30 then," he said.

"Yeah. Bye," Neji answered.

"Love you," Gaara added. Silence again. Love. Neji thought hard on that word. Just what kind of love did he and Gaara share? "Neji?" Gaara asked.

"Love you too," Neji said quickly, as if jolted to his senses.

"Okay," Gaara said slowly, feeling completely unconvinced. That little bit of hesitation made it sound so forced. Having to pull it out of Neji stripped it of its value. Why did it feel like Neji didn't mean it at all, not even in a platonic way? "Bye then," Gaara said glumly.

"I really do," Neji assured, catching onto Gaara's insecurity. "I was just lost in a thought. That's all. I love you."

 _That_  was more like it.  _That_  sounded genuine. Maybe it sounded so genuine to Gaara because it had never felt so genuine to Neji before in his life. Both men smiled, each for separate reasons that were really all in the same.

* * *

"Hey."

"How are you feeling?" Gaara asked.

"Same as always," Neji replied blandly.

"Are you in the tub?" Gaara asked. He was met with silence. He sighed. "Have you eaten anything?"

"Not hungry," was Neji's flat reply.

Gaara sighed again. "Yesterday I had to come home and make you eat that egg. Today, you're gonna eat it  _before_  I get home." Again, silence. "Neji, do you really wanna go through this process all over again? Just eat something," Gaara bargained. More silence. "You have to," he said firmly. Even more silence. "Fine," he conceded unhappily. "Love you."

"Love you too," Neji finally answered and with some actual emotion.

"Bye," Gaara replied shortly.

* * *

"How are you feeling?"

"Same as always."

"In the tub?"

Silence.

Sigh. "Eat?"

Silence.

"Neji?"

Silence.

Sigh. "Fine. See you at 6:30 then. Love you."

"Love you too."

* * *

"Should I even bother?"

"Probably not."

Sigh. "Then why do I even call? All you answer to is 'I love you'."

"You can call to  _just_  say that, you know."

"Then I might as well just text you."

"I would prefer it if you kept calling."

"Why?"

"I like to hear your voice."

"I like to hear yours too, but you don't talk to me. Why should  _I_  talk to  _you_?"

"I respond when you say you love me."

"Yeah and that's all."

"That's all I wanna hear."

A roll of Gaara's eyes, even if his heart did flutter at the words. "Fine."

"Alright."

"Okay."

"Good."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

"Bye."

* * *

Sigh. "Love you."

"Love you too."

"Bye."

That was it. Gaara had decided. Something needed to change. Their phone conversations were just ridiculous. Neji was always in the bathtub, he never ate, and he never wanted to talk. He only ever wanted to talk when Gaara was actually there at home. Then, every time Gaara got home, he had to physically go and take Neji out of the tub. At least he didn't have to force him to eat anymore. Neji was actually more than happy to share meals with Gaara. He wouldn't eat unless Gaara was there though. The routine was just horrible. Neji couldn't very well just wait for Gaara to return and rescue him from his own misery every single day. Gaara wasn't even sure if Neji cried at home alone or if he just saved the tears for when Gaara finally got there. It was almost like Neji didn't  _feel_  anything unless Gaara was there though. Neji's eyes would light up with a thousand conflicting things when Gaara would come to retrieve him. It wasn't healthy. It just couldn't be.

It had become something so complex, something that Gaara didn't know how to handle. It was as if the tub had become some strange way of earning Gaara's affection, as if Neji would ever have to  _earn_  it to begin with. Gaara was no psychologist, but it just didn't seem right. Neji had latched on to Gaara in a way that Gaara wasn't sure was okay. He would always be there for his friend, and he would happily spend all day cradling him and offering comfort. It was just the way that Neji depended on him that made Gaara worry. Neji may not have known, but he was torturing Gaara with his behavior too. Gaara was in love with the man after all, and the lines were just getting blurrier every day. Something had to change. Gaara didn't want to have to keep worrying about Neji and that stupid bathtub.

His solution was to recruit Kiba. He knew that Kiba would forcibly raise Neji's spirits. It was just a side effect of being around Kiba. You had to be happier in his company. That way, at least, Gaara wouldn't have to constantly wonder if Neji was approaching suicidal territory anymore. Neji  _had_  always said that Kiba was the best kryptonite against that type of thing. All in all, Kiba would put Gaara's mind at ease. He had warned Neji that staying in the tub would earn him this anyway. He was really just keeping his word. Nothing to feel guilty about at all.

* * *

"Love you," Gaara said simply, since that was all that their phone conversations had come to anymore.

"How's your day going?" Neji asked.

Gaara hesitated out of pure shock. He hadn't expected to actually talk, not that he was displeased. "Uh… it's just fine," he replied. "How about yours?"

"Good," Neji replied.

That was a definite improvement from 'same as always'. Gaara had expected as much though, since Kiba had been going over to their apartment every week day for the past two weeks. He often stayed for dinner too. Gaara could see Neji getting lighter and lighter also. He was still in sketchy territory, but he was better. He, at least, didn't  _look_ suicidal, if suicidal even had a look. Neji hadn't mentioned Kiba even once since Gaara had made that executive decision though, so Gaara didn't mention it either. That was why Neji's next statement caught Gaara off guard.

"Thanks for sending Kiba. It was the right thing to do," Neji said. "I... I find it impossible to think about dying with him here. He makes me wanna stick around."

Gaara smiled. "I'm glad that he's helpful," he said.

"But, you know, I always felt like you did the same thing," Neji said. "You keep me grounded all by yourself. You always have. You didn't really  _have_  to call him to begin with. I might have thought about it, but I was never gonna kill myself... just because it would keep me from you. It's always been that way."

Gaara's heart skipped a beat. Shit. There those lines went, getting blurry again. "Th-That's sweet," Gaara managed to spit out.

"It's the truth. I love Kiba, but I can't wait for  _you_  to get home. I like being in your company much better," Neji admitted bluntly.

"Well, I'll be back at 6:30, just like I always am," Gaara answered lightly, trying to make those lines very clear again. Neji was just his friend. He had to remember that. They were just friends. Neji's words were harmless, and he did not mean them how Gaara heard them.

"I'll be waiting, just like I always am," Neji said back. Gaara raised a skeptical brow. Then, as if he could see it, Neji amended, "Except I won't be in the bathtub."

"Good," Gaara said happily.

"I might be on the bed for a change," Neji added in a tone that made Gaara's spine tingle. He sounded so… erotic. What the fuck was up with that? Neji's voice was so… ugh… so sexy. Gaara was not okay with that. Neji was not allowed to be sexy. Gaara was not allowed to think that consciously.

"U-Uh… W-What have you been up to today then?" Gaara asked, grappling for a change in subject.

"Not much," Neji answered casually. "Kiba and I talked a little and watched some TV. He just kept me company like you wanted him to do. But, hey," Neji went on in a more inquisitive tone, "I was wondering... um... what you would think if I slept with Kiba."

Gaara coughed nervously. "Wh-What?" he spluttered.

Neji kept his voice casual. "I don't know. I just wondered. You're my best friend. You're the person I want to ask for advice from."

Gaara could practically  _hear_  Neji shrugging. Was this really such a casual topic to him? "Um… I… Uh…" Gaara stammered.

"I know he's not gay, but you think he could be?" Neji asked. "I just thought I might try."

"N-No!" Gaara nearly shouted. "I-I mean… I… You… J-Just no!"

"What?" Neji asked innocently.

"I just don't… I mean…" Gaara began stammering again. "You're… Uh… You're…"

"I'm what?" Neji asked. "Lonely," he supplied matter-of-factly, "and frustrated. That's what."

Gaara paled, but his annoyance overshadowed his embarrassment. "What?! You're not lonely! You have me! What else do you want?!" he asked hotly.

Neji smirked. That was telling. "Yeah, you're right. I do have you, but that doesn't solve my frustration," Neji retorted, "not at all."

"I… I… Um…" Gaara began stammering yet again. He wanted to say that he could definitely solve Neji's frustration, but that would be wrong. So he said nothing at all.

"Don't worry," Neji assured. "I won't try to turn Kiba gay. I'll just have to assert my frustrations on someone… else."

Gaara shivered. That sexy tone was back to haunt him. "I'll just see you at 6:30!" he said quickly. "Gotta get back to work!"

"Love you," Neji said softly, so softly that Gaara had to smile and relax. Everything was forgotten and all that remained was the sweetness of Neji's voice. Gaara forgot to remind himself that there were lines, and that Neji was saying it differently than Gaara was hearing it.

"I love you too," Gaara found himself cooing back a bit more tenderly than he had intended.

Neji sighed with disappointment when Gaara ended the call. He really needed to release some tension… on Gaara. Gaara, on the other hand, was relieved to be done with that phone call. It was, to say the least, an interesting conversation, and he wanted to forget it immediately. Clearly, his own attraction to his best friend was causing him to have delusions. Neji would never flirt with him, and yet Neji had sounded so flirty. If Gaara thought about it, Neji had been acting sort of flirty ever since Sai showed up. Bah! Gaara needed to release some frustration himself. His own sexual tension was clouding his mind. Throwing himself into his work efficiently cleared his head of all uncomfortable thoughts so that Gaara had completely shrugged off everything that had him stressed by the time he was driving home.

When he got home, Gaara went about his daily business. He tossed his keys in their designated bowl, they clanked as they hit Neji's, he stowed his briefcase, shrugged off his jacket, and began removing his tie as he turned toward his room. He paused halfway through pulling off his tie when he saw the meal that was prepared and waiting for him on the island, and it came with a smiling Neji already waiting patiently too.

Gaara cocked his head to the side. "Uh… What's this?" he asked. Neji simply motioned to the stool adjacent to him. Gaara left his tie half removed and obediently sat down. "Is there an occasion or something?"

"What do you want to drink?" Neji asked, his voice sounding all sorts of velvety and causing Gaara's brain to lapse.

"Uhhhhh…"

Neji chuckled lightly. "Wine?" he suggested. "You like wine." Gaara nodded in agreement.

Neji busied himself with retrieving the wine from the cabinet above the fridge. It required climbing up on the counter and reaching for the fucking heavens too. He took his time and really thought about his actions. He thought about Sasuke, about Naruto, and even about Sai. Did he even know what he was doing? Dinner? Wine? Sex? He wasn't just using Gaara... was he? These feelings weren't just some byproduct of his grief... right? They were real. They were caused by Gaara, not Sasuke... weren't they?

Suddenly, it all felt so stupid. Why would Neji possibly...

That thought was cut off when he turned back to see Gaara's beautiful eyes watching him intently. Oh. That was reason enough for anything. Gaara was beautiful, and Neji wanted him. Judging by the way Gaara watched Neji's hips as he made his way back to his seat, Gaara wanted him too. Well, fuck. It was just written in the stars. If Neji was gonna do this, then he was gonna go all in. So, not at all impervious to the way that Gaara's eyes were glued to him, Neji poured them each a glass of wine. Gaara never stopped looking at Neji, and the intensity of his gaze was all the encouragement that Neji had needed. Slowly and precisely, he twirled a small bite of the spaghetti he had prepared around his fork.

"I know spaghetti is your favorite," Neji said, his voice smoother than silk. In the most seductive way that he could imagine, Neji wrapped his tongue smoothly around the spooled noodles before pulling them slowly into his mouth, making sure not to go out of his way to stop the sauce from dripping a bit onto the corner of his mouth. He quirked a very sleek eye brow and then smirked. "Oops," he whispered before wiping the sauce off with his finger in an agonizingly slow fashion.

Once Gaara's eyes flitted to the dirty digit, Neji licked it clean and then sucked it for good measure before releasing it with a pop. The noise caused Gaara to swallow thickly. His throat was suddenly very dry, but the thought of taking a drink was far too complex to process at that point. He was on a one-track mind, and it was currently stuck on Neji. He parted his lips, probably subconsciously, and watched as Neji lifted his wine and took a tiny sip. Neji licked his bottom lip appreciatively, and Gaara found himself mimicking Neji unintentionally.

It must have been the way that Neji closed his eyes and released a breathy moan at the very same moment that his foot just so happened to find Gaara's ankle that pushed Gaara over the edge because he stood up abruptly and announced, "I'm not hungry," before he very nearly ran to his bedroom.

Neji remained seated to assess the situation, but he did lean back to watch Gaara rush down the hall and disappear into his room. If anything, Neji was even more sure that he wanted Gaara, and Gaara  _definitely_  wanted him back. He had to ease the tension though because Gaara was obviously struggling. Before, Neji thought that he had creeped Gaara out when they'd had that encounter with the tickling. Now, however, he wasn't so insecure. He knew that Gaara was attracted to him. Maybe it was just hard for Gaara to see Neji as anything other than a friend. If that was the case, then all Gaara needed was a bit of whiskey. Neji smirked. That always got Gaara good and loosened up. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey from above the fridge and slowly meandered into Gaara's bedroom to put his new plan into action. Gaara was standing in front of his closet door with his forehead pressed to it.

"Have a drink," Neji suggested.

Gaara tensed considerably at the other's voice. "No thanks. I don't think that's the best idea you've ever had," he said without moving from his position.

"I insist," Neji replied. This time, his voice was much closer and Gaara tensed up much more.

"No,  _I_  insist," Gaara answered. He very nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Neji's hand rest gently on his shoulder.

"I'm not gonna rape you," Neji whispered against Gaara's ear while he reached around Gaara to stash the cap that he had twisted off in the pocket of Gaara's dress shirt. Then, Neji chuckled. He swung the bottle around Gaara's body and into his chest. "Have a drink," he suggested again in an overly casual tone. "You could use it." He retreated and left Gaara to stand alone with the bottle of whiskey. He chose, instead, to sit at the foot of Gaara's bed, leaning back casually on his hands for support.

When Gaara turned around to face Neji, he felt very confused at the sight. Had he just imagined that scene in the kitchen? Had he been so frustrated that he could actually _imagine_  Neji acting so seductive? Because Neji looked awfully calm right at that moment. He was looking like nothing had happened. Maybe Gaara  _did_  need that drink, so he chose to take a very generous swig. He, then, walked over to Neji and offered the whiskey back. Gaara tensed again when Neji stood and their chests were suddenly very close together. Neji did not seem bothered though, so Gaara decided that he shouldn't be either.

Neji took the bottle and swallowed a generous swig of his own, holding Gaara's gaze innocently. He offered the bottle back to Gaara, who took another swig without a word and was also unable to break Neji's gaze. They passed the bottle between each other a few more times in comfortable silence, never breaking each other's gaze but not unaware of how that gaze intensified with each passing moment.

After another swig, Neji licked his lips. It was a short, involuntary flick of the tongue, but Gaara's eyes were hungry for more once it stopped. Very aware of the attention he was getting, Neji smirked. Gaara bit his own lip subconsciously. The lines were getting blurred again. Of course, that may have just been the alcohol. Gaara wasn't necessarily a light-weight, but whiskey was his kryptonite. Not to mention, they had already downed a good portion of it. To say that he wasn't feeling a bit goofy already would be a lie. His grip loosened on the bottle, but Neji grasped his hand to keep it from slipping away. That simple touch sent Gaara's heart into a pounding race. His lids fell to half-mast with lust and he swore that he could climax just from the way that Neji was looking at him alone. Fuck. Whiskey wasn't just blurring the lines. It was decimating them.

Neji knew it then. Gaara was finally his. There was nothing in their way anymore, and there was definitely not one, single doubt in Neji's mind. This was what he wanted. He took the bottle from Gaara's hand and retrieved the cap from his shirt pocket, making sure to 'accidentally' brush sensually against his chest a couple of times. When the cap was safely back on the bottle, Neji dropped it to the ground. Thank god the floor was carpeted because Neji was not impervious to whiskey and dropping a glass bottle on the ground seemed like a good idea at the time. Very slowly, Neji's hands traveled up Gaara's arms and came to rest on his chest. In a quick movement, Gaara had both of his hands placed on the small of Neji's back, pulling Neji flush against him. Their lips were but a hair's length apart, and other regions were even closer.

"This is wrong," Gaara whispered, though he was lacking conviction.

"No. It's right," Neji whispered back.

"How do you know that?" Gaara inquired.

"I want you," Neji answered. "What's wrong with that?"

Gaara leaned just a tiny bit closer, enough for electricity to really spark between their lips. Neji waited patiently though. He didn't want to make that first move. Gaara had to want this too.

"Sasuke?" Gaara asked.

"Is gone," Neji finished, "so let's not talk about him."

"You don't want him anymore?" Gaara asked.

"Right now, I want you," Neji husked, pushing his hips into Gaara's.

Gaara had to stifle a moan. "If… If… I…" Gaara's eyes drifted shut and the thought was lost in a haze of lust. "I…" He opened his eyes with renewed passion and his lips descended. It was like opening a dam for the both of them.

Gaara pulled Neji even closer and Neji wrapped his arms around Gaara's neck. Their lips moved in passionate harmony. Their tongues danced delicately. Before they knew it, their hips were grinding in synchrony. Only when Neji released a rather loud moan did they part amicably. They rested their foreheads against each other as they leisurely ground their hips together. Gaara took a step forward and knocked Neji back onto the bed.

He stared at Neji for a moment before crawling over him. He held himself hovering over Neji, not touching but still close enough to share heat. As he gazed deep into Neji's eyes, he felt love. He saw something pure, but it was not so pure at all really. It was fake. It was fraud. In the blink of an eye, Gaara's mood was dampened. The lust was easier to fight back. Neji's sexy demeanor wasn't so hard to dismiss. Gaara loved Neji, and maybe Neji loved Gaara too. That wasn't enough though. This night would never be enough for either of them. It wasn't honest, and Gaara would never have Neji unless it was because he truly loved the man. It was no fleeting crush or infatuation. It was real, true, honest love and he would accept nothing less in return.

"You think I can fill a void that I can't," Gaara said softly as he put some distance between their lips. Neji furrowed his brows confusedly and tried to pull Gaara back down by his tie. "No," Gaara said as he gently freed the tie from his neck. He pushed himself back and stood at the foot of the bed again. "You think that this will help, but it'll just make it worse."

Neji shook his head no. "I know what I want," he insisted.

"No,  _I_  know what I want," Gaara retorted. " _You_  know what you wanna  _feel_. This isn't real though. This is just pretend. Don't act like you don't wish I was Sasuke."

"I don't!" Neji quickly refuted.

"Don't lie," Gaara pleaded. "It's because you're my best friend that I have to say no to you, so I'm sleeping alone tonight." He gazed at Neji with conflicted eyes, and then added, "And you'll sleep in your bed, not the tub."

Neji opened his mouth to argue, to tell Gaara that this wasn't about Sasuke, but he snapped it shut instead. What was even the point? Gaara just didn't want him. That was that. For whatever reason, Gaara was rejecting him. Gaara had just said it. He knew what he wanted, and that obviously wasn't Neji. If it was, they'd be halfway to making whoopee by now. It was because they were friends that they couldn't do it. So Neji was just a friend. That was all he'd ever be. Sasuke was just Gaara's excuse to hide behind. The truth was there though. He was just too nice to say it so bluntly. He didn't want Neji. It couldn't get any more obvious than that. Trying to prove that he wanted Gaara for Gaara would just be humiliating at that point, so Neji left.

Gaara attempted to ignore the miserable sobs that Neji tried to stifle from his room. Gaara hadn't wanted to  _upset_  Neji. He hadn't wanted to make him  _cry_. He just wanted it to be real. He wanted to be with Neji only if Neji truly wanted to be with him. He would  _not_  have sex with Neji tonight, and he could  _not_  go and comfort Neji either. They just couldn't touch right now because Gaara was a little drunk and the lines had been blurred for days now. He was sure that even the simplest, most innocent touch would be enough to crumble his resolve. It would feel like so much more right now. He was only human, and sometimes sexual desire became too much for even him. That had only never happened with Neji before because Neji had never pursued Gaara so strongly before. Honestly, Gaara really hoped that Neji would never do it again too, at least not until he could be sure that Neji was looking for more than just an escape.

When Neji fell particularly quiet, Gaara took the opportunity to knock goodnight. He tapped the wall above his head lightly with a knuckle. He waited patiently for a response but got nothing. He knocked a bit louder. Still, there was no reply, and so he was reduced to holding back tears of his own. Things had really changed now and maybe they'd never be the same. He rolled over and tried to force himself to sleep but to no avail.

It must have been, at least, an hour later when he finally received a meek reply. Two tiny, soft taps came from Neji, and Gaara found the energy to smile. Neji had, apparently, waited until he thought that Gaara was asleep to tap back, but he tapped back nonetheless. That was all that mattered to Gaara. It was a little ray of sunshine. It was something to build off of. In the wreckage that had just become their friendship, not all was lost because Neji had tapped back and that meant the world to Gaarab

* * *

Gaara, to say the very least, was eager to get home. Not only was he eager to clean up the whole mess with Neji, but he was a bit worried too. He was sure that it was nothing, but Neji didn't answer his call at lunch time. Neji was, surely, just sleeping though… probably in the tub. Still, it was the first day that Neji had been home alone in a while, and it just had to be the day right after their… encounter. Not to mention, it was the first time that Neji hadn't answered Gaara's lunchtime call too. He trusted that Neji was alright, but he couldn't help but to rush home early anyway. He could only wait another hour after lunch before the anticipation was nearly strangling him. He almost wished that he'd taken his time though… because he definitely wasn't ready for what he came home to.

He walked through his door, threw his keys in their designated bowl, set his briefcase down beneath the coat rack, shrugged off his coat, hung it up, and removed his tie. Then, he got himself a glass of water, something to calm his nerves. He kept his ears peeled for anything out of the ordinary, but he hadn't expected to hear it. He didn't want to yell, just in case Neji was sleeping. He didn't mind buying himself some time to collect his thoughts anyway. He needed to calm down. It had been a very interesting night last night.

He, then, heard a thump come from what sounded to be the bathroom. He scrunched his brows up in confusion. What was Neji doing in the bathroom that caused such a thump? He figured that he had probably just shifted or something in the bathtub, which Gaara had already been expecting Neji to be in, but then Gaara heard a light moan and that really confused him. He just shrugged it off. Another moan that was somewhat louder sounded out though. Gaara really wondered what the hell Neji was doing then, because that moan sounded kind of incriminating. If Neji was… ya know… then Gaara would have to take a long walk or something. He didn't even want to be in the same apartment while Neji was doing that, not after last night.

"Gaara…"

Gaara's heart leapt out of his chest. Neji had definitely just moaned his name. He accidentally dropped his glass and it shattered on the floor. Well, if he hadn't already made his presence known, then it was definitely known now. He pinched the bridge of his nose. What the fuck should he do? Neji was…  _moaning_  his name in the bathroom. This was so wrong. It was all so wrong. All he could do was wait for the man to come out and confront him. He heard Neji moan his name again, and his throat went dry. Why wasn't Neji stopping? He couldn't pretend that he hadn't heard that Gaara was home. That glass had made a very loud crash on the floor.

Neji moaned again, a bit more urgently t his time. Gaara slowly made his way toward the bathroom. The door was cracked but he just stood outside of it nervously, trying to decide what to do. Neji moaned yet again and it was followed by a feeble, broken sob. Was Neji crying and… ya knowing… at the same time? Neji just barely breathed Gaara's name again.

Gaara took a deep breath. "Neji?" he asked nervously, receiving another moan in reply. "Uh… You… You shouldn't… um… I don't know… Just… uh… We have to… uh… talk… So… uh…"

"Gaara," Neji groaned weakly.

"You can't just do…  _that…_  while I'm talking to you, Neji!" Gaara scolded. "You can't… We can't… Ugh!" Gaara groaned. This was not an easy conversation to have, especially not when Neji was ya knowing on the other side of the door. Neji sobbed again, and then, suddenly, it all sounded different to Gaara.

"Neji?" Gaara inquired tentatively. He stepped closer to the door and put his ear right up to the crack. "Are you okay?" Another feeble sob left Neji's lips. Slowly, Gaara pushed the door open. "I'm coming in so… uh… cover up?" he said cautiously. He peered into the bathroom and then slammed the door open. "Oh my god!" he shouted, running to the tub and ripping off the shower curtain completely in his haste to get it out of the way.

He grabbed Neji's right wrist in a death grip with both hands and began to hyperventilate. The bathtub was covered in blood. Neji was covered in cuts, though the one wrist that he was holding was the worst. Gaara was very lightheaded. He turned away quickly and managed to steady himself without letting Neji go. He almost lost his lunch before he was able to look back at Neji, who was staring at him with the most pitiful expression that he had ever seen. Gaara tired to ignore all the blood and quickly snatched a towel off of the towel rack to wrap around the wounded wrist.

"Hold it!" Gaara snapped. Neji choked on a sob at the tone. "Hold it!" Gaara snapped again and Neji complied. He was weak though, so Gaara knew that he had to be fast.

Gaara couldn't even imagine how much blood Neji had lost. He probably should have been dead. He would  _be_  dead if Gaara didn't get help  _right now_. He ran from the bathroom and into the kitchen to look for his phone. Then, he cursed when he felt it vibrate in his pocket. He snatched it out and ignored Kiba's call to dial 911 while running back into the bathroom. He knelt beside the tub again and balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear while he took hold of the towel again, squeezing it tightly. Neji groaned uncomfortably, but shut up when Gaara's unforgiving glare landed on him.

"911, wh—"

"My friend has lost a lot of blood! He has a terrible cut on his wrist and I don't know how long he's been here!" Gaara exclaimed.

"Okay. Sir, I need you to calm down," the dispatcher said.

"I need you to send me help!" Gaara retorted in panic. "Don't tell me to calm down!"

"I need your address," the lady said calmly.

"Can't you… Don't you know! It's… uh… apartment… uh… I… I don't know! I'm panicked! I can't think!" Gaara shouted as he started to hyperventilate again.

"It's alright, sir. We've located your residence and help is on its way," the dispatcher reassured. "How many wounds does he have?" she inquired.

"Yes!" Gaara snapped, though his voice was shaky. "I-I mean, a lot," he amended. "He has... a... lot... of cuts... but... only one... bleeding... bad."

"Sir? Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance as well?" the dispatcher asked.

"It's… every… where… oh god… not… good… with blood…" Gaara choked out through panicked breaths. "Too… much…"

"Sir, I need you to regulate your breathing. You need to calm down. Look away from the blood if you need to," the lady instructed.

Gaara turned away and almost hurled again. In his haste, his phone dropped into the tub. When he looked back and saw it covered in blood, he really did hurl. He was thankful that the trash can was right there. He slammed his head against the edge of the tub when he was done and began to cry quietly. He was too overwhelmed and he couldn't handle it all. It was too much. It was way too much.

"Why would you do this?" Gaara asked Neji desperately. "I… I need you, Neji. You can't do this to me!" he added, not lifting his head or even looking up.

Neji loosed a few tears. "Love… you…" he breathed out.

Gaara began to cry more heavily, but he kept his face hidden. He could hear the dispatcher still trying to talk to him. He could hear sirens approaching. He could hear a loud knock on his door. He responded to none of it. He kept crying. Then, he felt two hands pulling him backward to the other side of the bathroom, and so he closed his eyes tightly. He assumed that it was the paramedics. They had come. They had relieved him. Now he just needed to work on stopping these pathetic tears.

Then, he heard the paramedics rush into the apartment and shout questions at him. When he opened his eyes, he tried to look at whoever had come in first, but there was already a paramedic attempting to command his attention by snapping in his face that was blocking his view. He saw the mystery man's boots stand out among the crowd of shoes though. The snapping sounds that the paramedic attempting to tend to him was making dulled significantly when he caught a glance of blood trickling down the side of the tub. When he saw Neji's arm flop over after it, looking completely lifeless, the world very nearly went black. Less than an instant later, someone had snatched the arm back up and out of Gaara's view, but that really was too much for him. He glanced at his paramedic's face, muttered something unintelligible, and then blacked out.

* * *

Gaara refused the nurse's pleas for him to lie back down for the third time, insisting that he was absolutely fine. So he had blacked out. Was that really any reason to commit him? He figured that she really didn't have any reason to detain him, considering they hadn't even hooked him up to any machines or put him in a hospital gown. Thus, he was fine. They had obviously just picked an empty room to let him rest in once they figured out that he wasn't dying. Now that he was awake though, he was going to find Neji. The nurse finally gave in to Gaara's strong will and told him where he should go. Luckily, it was just down the hall.

He could only relax when he heard the reassuring beeping of machines doing their jobs and indicating that Neji was alive. Once Gaara had confirmed that it was, indeed, Neji laying on the bed, then he could breathe a real sigh of relief. He pulled up a chair on the left side of the bed so that he could keep an eye on the door, just in case the mystery man chose to pay Neji a visit. Once he was settled in a comfortable and efficient position, he surveyed the damage. Both of Neji's arms were bandaged up entirely from the wrist to the shoulder, but Gaara could see that the wound on his right wrist was the most heavily bandaged. Even through its many layers of gauze and what were sure to be stitches beneath, the wound continued to stain the dressings with blood. The rest of Neji's arm bandages were spotted slightly here and there with red but, over all, they were on the fast track to healing normally. All in all, the bandages looked more threatening than they were.

Gaara laid one arm on the edge of the bed and rested his chin on it. He laid the other so that he could take Neji's hand in his own. "What happened to sticking around because I was here?" he asked his sleeping friend quietly. He obviously wasn't expecting an answer, but he wanted to get it out anyway. This could be his practice round before Neji actually woke up. "What happened to not needing Kiba because you had me?" Gaara went on, his voice quiet and dreary. "Because I send you away for one night, you do this? You decide to kill yourself just because I won't let you use me? You—"

"Stop." It was barely a whisper, but it was enough to shut Gaara up. Much to his surprise, it seemed that Neji was only resting his eyes.

"You're awake?" Gaara asked, lifting his head from its resting position and sitting up rather stiffly.

Neji nodded yes and cracked his lids to peek at Gaara. "And I didn't try to kill myself," he said quietly.

"So then what's all this if it wasn't you trying to kill yourself?" Gaara asked.

"I got carried away," Neji said simply.

"Carried away?" Gaara repeated quietly. Neji squeezed Gaara's hand, but he slipped it away. "You almost  _died_."

"Please don't pull away from me," Neji pleaded, reaching out to touch Gaara again in some way,  _any_  way. Gaara shifted out of reach, never breaking Neji's gaze. Neji's eyes turned more apologetic than he felt that they had ever been. He had never seen such pain in Gaara's eyes, and it was devastating the be the cause. "It was an accident," Neji whispered.

" _This_  was an  _accident_?" Gaara asked, grabbing Neji's less wounded arm and shaking it emphatically.

Neji winced, not in pain but in guilt. "I just... accidentally cut too deep," he argued. Gaara snorted derisively and dropped Neji's arm. He leaned all the way back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, averting his eyes. "Don't!" Neji groaned miserably.

"Don't what?!" Gaara snapped, jerking his eyes back to Neji. They had turned from desolate to angry.

"Don't pull away," Neji supplied. "Don't get all Sas—" Neji cut himself off and pressed his lips shut tightly. That was the wrong thing to say.

Gaara chose to ignore where that was going. "What?" he asked disdainfully. "Don't make you feel bad? Don't pull away from you? Am I getting too moody for your taste?"

Neji huffed. "I need you to be here with me."

Gaara rolled his eyes. "Am I hurting your feelings? Do you feel lonely, Neji? Is that it? Am I getting all  _Sasuke_  on you?" Gaara stood from his chair abruptly. "Well, you should be happy. You're finally getting what you want. I'm finally Sasuke for you!" he snapped and then began walking away.

"Stop!" Gaara ignored Neji's plea. "Stop!  _Stop_!" Gaara halted with his hand on the doorknob. "Please don't leave me!" Neji begged with a shaky, tear-stricken voice.

"You were gonna leave me," Gaara retorted, not even turning around.

He knew that the sight of Neji so shaken would be more than enough to tear him down. He couldn't break his resolve just yet though. He had the right to be angry, to be  _hurt_. Neji couldn't take that away just because he didn't want to feel guilty. It couldn't always be about him _._  Right now, it was about Gaara. Didn't he matter for once? He knew that turning around and looking into Neji's eyes would render him unable to resist coddling Neji. Did Gaara not deserve a little coddling for once though? When was it his turn?

"I'm  _sorry_!" Neji said loudly. "Please, just forgive me," he asked more timidly. "I wasn't trying to kill myself. It was just... just a pity party."

"That's how you throw pity parties?! You cut yourself?!" Gaara snapped, turning around and glaring at Neji. It took all of his will power to latch onto that anger and keep himself from feeling sorry for Neji. Neji did not deserve his sympathy right now. "That's bullshit, Neji! You stopped that habit a long time ago!"

"Old habits die hard," Neji retorted.

"Neji!" Gaara shouted with exasperation. "You never even cut yourself over Sasuke! Not once!" Gaara managed to lower his voice down to a less thunderous level. "That was how I knew you'd be okay. I figured that you'd revert to that before committing suicide. Now, you decide to cut yourself over something so  _petty_? You cut yourself so deep that I have to come home you in a bloody tub,  _dying_? And you expect me to believe that it was just an accident?"

"Yes," Neji said.

Gaara shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "What kind of a fool do you take me for?"

"Maybe Sasuke just didn't hurt this much," Neji mused.

Gaara snorted. "Cut the bullshit!" he demanded.

"I'm serious!" Neji insisted. "Maybe that's why I was never driven this far. Maybe that's why it was all just empty threats to myself." Gaara sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes in frustration. Neji sighed too. "Please sit back down," he requested. Gaara glanced back up at Neji and those needy eyes were his demise. He had been sucked back in the second that he turned around anyway. There was no point in pretending that Neji didn't have the power here, so he crossed the room and sat back down. He chose to look at anything but Neji though. "You have a right to be mad," Neji said.

"Ill say," was Gaara's flat reply.

"But," Neji went on, "I'm serious when I say it was an accident. I meant it when I said that I wanted to live for you. I'm really sorry."

Gaara turned eyes that wanted to be angry but chose to be sad instead back to Neji. "Where the hell did you get off getting  _carried away_  like that?"

"I don't know," Neji said quietly.

"Did you think about no one but yourself, Neji?" Gaara asked. "I mean, seriously."

"I guess not," Neji admitted.

"Even if it hadn't almost killed you, didn't you think that someone might still be really fucking upset to see you like that?" Gaara asked. Neji cringed at the pain in his voice. "And didn't you think that maybe that someone had no clue that sending you to your room would push you to do something so stupid? If he had known, that someone would have just slept with you!"

"Just to appease me? Just to keep me from cutting? That's all?" Neji asked.

"Yes," Gaara said. "I wouldn't be able to fake it for any other reason."

"Fake it?" Neji asked, feeling hurt by those words.

"Yes," Gaara said flatly. "Fake it, Neji. That's what I said. You think I want to have sex with someone who's using me as a crutch? If I would have conceded, it would have been just to pacify you," he said.

"I wouldn't want that," Neji said quietly.

"Yet you tried so hard to get it!" Gaara said, his voice rising with emotion. "What? That's not what you want? You don't want me if I'm just doing it to make you happy, if I'm not invested?"

"No," Neji replied, sounding defeated.

"Does it feel like shit, knowing that it would have meant nothing to me?" Gaara pestered.

"Yes," Neji whispered.

"Then welcome to my world!" Gaara shouted. "Welcome to every day of my life! It sucks being seduced to satisfy someone's selfish need, a need that's not even for you but for someone else! It sucks being used!" Gaara huffed to catch his breath. He averted his eyes in embarrassment. He hadn't shown such emotion in such a long time. It almost felt foreign to let it be seen so easily. "Why did you have to punish me like  _this_?" he asked miserably, fighting to keep his voice from trembling.

"I wasn't punishing you," Neji said quietly.

"Well, it sure feels like you are," Gaara argued. He flickered his misty eyes to Neji's for an instant, just long enough to see the remorse there. "What did I ever do to deserve this?" Gaara asked quietly, more to himself than to Neji.

"I wasn't just using you," Neji assured.

"That's not it," Gaara said. "That's not even the beginning of it, Neji." He looked back up to Neji. "I mean, what did I do to deserve this life in general? Why did I have to fall in love with you _,_  someone who was destined to never want me back? Why did I have to comfort you as a friend over your lost lover? Why did I have to suck up every ounce of my pain just to spare you yours? Why has it always been about you and never about me? Why do I deserve this? What did I do?" Gaara finished miserably.

"I'm sorry," Neji said quietly.

"Enough with that!" Gaara exclaimed. "Stop being sorry. It's useless. What does that do for me? What does your apology do to stop this ache that I feel, this hurt? Yeah. I hurt, Neji. I hurt a lot. I hurt every time I look at you, every time you smile at me, every time I think that smile should be  _just_  for me, every time you brush my skin, every time I think that little touch was orchestrated  _just_  for me, every I hear your voice, and every time I think that you should speak  _just_  for me. I hurt every single day of my life just because I'm in love with you. I hurt so much, Neji." Gaara stopped the fluctuation in his voice and the few tears that fought to fall. He did not fight the emotion in his eyes though. He let it burn fiercely. He let it scorch Neji like an open flame. It was time for Neji to see him like this, to see what he had done to Gaara. "I hurt so much," Gaara added in a whisper, "but you've never known. You've never seen." Neji tried to reach for Gaara again, but Gaara pulled away. "Don't touch me," he said.

"I... I've never... known," Neji said slowly, vacantly.

"Of course not," Gaara replied, trying to sound spiteful but failing. Those words were like a knife. It was an admission that Gaara had never wanted to hear. It wasn't that Neji had never known. It was that he could never have been bothered to know. That brought more tears to Gaara's eyes, and so he turned away and hid them, not letting them fall.

Neji sighed. "That was a lie," he admitted. "I don't know why I'm lying to you." He turned to stare up at the ceiling. "You deserve so much more than this," he whispered, his voice trembling.

"But I want  _you_ ," was Gaara quiet, dismal reply, "like a moron."

"I've always known, Gaara. I've always seen," Neji said.

Gaara wanted to tell Neji to stop. He would rather Neji have been ignorant.

"I've always felt that connection between us," Neji went on, "but I was selfish. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to do what I wanted, and you were so good at hiding everything that it was so easy for me to forget that you could get hurt too, that I was already hurting you. It was easy to pretend that you didn't mind because you were always pretending that you didn't, even if I knew otherwise."

So that was it. Neji had always been aware. He had just never cared. Gaara wished for ignorance now.

"I just didn't want to feel guilty," Neji continued, "but you have to know that my smiles  _are_  yours. They are  _just_  for you. All of those insignificant brushes were more significant than I ever cared to admit. I actually think that I was given a voice  _just_  to speak to you, Gaara. Maybe that's all I was ever meant to do." Gaara peeked up at Neji, who continued to stare at the ceiling. "I don't think I should be allowed to do that though because you've always been standing right in front me and showing me, even if you weren't telling me. You think that I should have seen and that I should have known, but I did. I saw. I knew.  _That_  is why you deserve better." Gaara sat more upright in order to gaze at Neji's face, which was riddled with shame. "You deserve someone who will put you first, someone who won't love you only in the shadows of his own mind."

"Love me?" Gaara asked skeptically.

Neji nodded his head. "Love you," he reassured.

"Don't say shit just to please me," Gaara warned uncertainly. How had this gone from Gaara confessing, to Neji admitting to being a shitty friend, and then to Neji confessing too?

"I would never," Neji replied very seriously. He glanced at Gaara for a moment before looking back up at the ceiling. He shifted uncomfortably. He had never even admitted these things to himself, so it felt strange to him too.  _This_  was the moment though. It was finally here. He was going to get over Sasuke for good. He was moving on. The grief was just a distant memory now. This was all that he ever needed to do. This was all it would take. He just had to come to terms with himself, with Gaara. Why had he put this off for so long?

"I could never replace what Sasuke and I had," Neji said. He went on quickly when he saw Gaara's face fall out of the corner of his eye, "Maybe I don't need to replace him, though, because maybe I was never really with him to begin with. Maybe he was the real replacement all along," Neji said tentatively, testing out uncharted territory and glancing compulsively between Gaara and the ceiling. When Gaara peeked up at him, he stared resolutely at the ceiling again. "Sasuke was just what I settled for because that was easy... easier than you at least," Neji went on uncertainly. "I guess I had to lose Sasuke indefinitely to see that what I really wanted wasn't him at all and that it never was. All along, what I needed to do was simple. It was easy. It was so natural. Yet, I've always been afraid of it."

The words starting coming to him more easily now that he was in thick of his confession. They felt right, as if this was how it was always meant to be. "I was always running away from the truth because the truth was scary and because I was selfish. I was never blind or ignorant. I wish I was because then I wouldn't be so much of an asshole, but I was just stupid. I must have decided  _years_  ago that you were all life would ever really amount to. You were all I would ever be." He found his courage and met Gaara's eyes. Even if he didn't deserve this man, even if his words would amount to nothing, Neji wanted to look into those eyes and admit what was in his heart for once. "I really messed up, Gaara, but maybe you'll forgive me. Maybe you'll forgive me because you love me and because I love you too. You've never been chasing Sasuke. He's always been chasing you. You've been the man I've wanted, the man I've needed. Sasuke was just the man I put in your place because there was nothing scary about him and I. We were simple because there was really no depth at all."

Gaara searched Neji's eyes for any indication of a lie, but he found nothing of the sort. They were unwavering. They were honest. "You're scared of me?" he finally asked.

Neji shook his head no. "Scared of myself, really. Scared of how monumental you and I could be. Scared that I wouldn't be enough for you. I was scared that you deserved better than me, and now I've made sure that you do. You shouldn't forgive me. You should stop loving me. That's what you need."

"And what about you?" Gaara asked. "What do you need?"

Neji shook his head and smiled sadly. "You've been catering to my needs for far too long."

"Tell me," Gaara insisted. "Tell me what you will do when I am finally gone from your life."

Neji sighed and looked up at the ceiling again. "I will... be, I suppose. I'll just exist."

"Alone?" Gaara asked.

"I'll have no other," Neji answered automatically. "What I need, Gaara," Neji went on, looking back at his friend, "is you. What I need is the love that I have spent so long turning away. I need everything that you are. I don't deserve what I need though, not after everything that I've done. You have the right to deny that to me. You have the right to disregard my needs. I can't ask you to give yourself to someone as low as me. I can't ask you to stoop down to my level."

Slowly, Gaara reached over and took Neji's hand. "We all make mistakes," he said quietly, "and sometimes we cause those that we love to suffer." Gaara took a deep breath. "If I was to be with you, Neji, I would not be stooping. I would be rising. You and I, we both lacked courage. Maybe if I hadn't been so insecure myself, I could have told you and I could have won you over fairly. You never stopped, but I never asked," he finished quietly.

"I'm so glad that I can be honest for once," Neji said, "and I'm glad that you've been honest too... but you're still hiding your tears from me." Gaara dropped his head low. "I may be the cause, but maybe I can be the remedy too," Neji suggested. Gaara tried to still his trembling shoulders. He did not want to cry, but he did not know how to do otherwise. Was it time? Were they back to that place where he could he trust Neji with his tears again? After all, everything was in his hands now. Neji had just confessed to him. Neji had admitted his wrongs. Neji was that one waiting now, waiting for Gaara's acceptance. He was seeking forgiveness and love. Would Gaara give it to him?

Neji shifted so that he could use his other hand to touch Gaara's face. It was a beautiful thing when Gaara leaned into the touch instead of away. After everything, Neji felt repulsive, but Gaara did not shy away. "I would never want to see tears clouding up your beautiful eyes," Neji whispered, lifting Gaara's face until their eyes met again, "but it hurts me more to see you holding back. It hurts more to know that I've forced that upon you." Gaara's eyes filled to the brim with tears, but would they fall?  _Could_  they fall? "All I've ever wanted to do was love you, Gaara," Neji went on. "I just never knew how."

They stared at each other in silence for a short while, saying multitudes with just their eyes. Gaara judged his own capacity for love. Could he still love this man after everything that had been said here this night? Could he still offer himself to Neji as wholly as before? Had his heart wavered?

"If I could freeze any moment in time," Gaara began softly.

No.

"—then this would be it."

His heart had not wavered. It could not.

"I would hold onto this for the rest of eternity."

Because he was in love.

"Just the touch of your hand and the knowledge that you love me,"

He was madly in love with this man. He always had been.

"—that would be all that I need."

And these tears that could finally fall again were, like so many other things in Gaara's life, entrusted solely to Neji. They always would be.

"You would be all that I need,"

And if Neji would finally have him...

"—because I love you."

Then he would have Neji too.

It was Neji's intent to return the sentiment, but his voice was drowned in his own tears. After such a long time of dancing around the truth, things were finally as they should be. Despite Neji's deliberate wrong-doings, Gaara still loved him. Gaara did not turn away from him, not even in his ugliest hour. When Neji deserved him least, Gaara loved him most. It was a feeling of freedom and of relief. He was released from whatever deathly grip that Sasuke had been holding on him. He was just free, free to feel the love that had been caged inside of him, free to express it. Yes, he needed to express it. He needed to shout, to cry, to scream it through the corridors. He would have settled for even a whisper, but his voice was choked. He could not speak. He could do no more than whimper against Gaara's chest when he climbed into bed next to Neji.

There was a mutual understanding though. Gaara knew that these were tears that Neji had not cried in a very long time. They were not tears of sadness. These were tears of joy, of liberation. These were tears of solidarity, tears that sealed their hearts together. This was the moment that everything changed, and it needed no explaining because it was as clear as day to them both. Neji did not need to strain. It was known. He had said all that needed to be said. Gaara needed to hear no more because he could feel it all in his heart. It was so simple, so plain.

"I know," Gaara said softly as he pulled Neji closer to his chest, reveling in how perfectly right that it felt. "I already know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Can anyone tell me who the mystery person that Gaara mistakes for a paramedic is? I want to know if I've finally succeeded in stumping someone xD If you can guess right, I may offer you a one-shot. I might not be prompt about it though, so if you guess right and are willing to wait for said one-shot, then you have every right to request it :)


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